Nursery Rhymes

Introduction:

For our project, we decided to collect nursery rhymes from around the globe, with a concentration in German nursery rhymes.  Dedicated primarily for children as entertainment, education, or calming mechanisms, nursery rhymes seem to exist and share several formal commonalities across many cultures.  All of the collected nursery rhymes were either taught in school or by family members and were set to some type of rhythm.  The rhythm was either produced by clapping or swaying, depending on the content and context of the rhyme.  Nursery rhymes that resembled lullabies or were intended to induce sleep were paired with rocking motions, whereas entertainment-based rhymes were joined with clapping and overall more motion.  Regardless of the country or region from which these nursery rhymes came, they all have impacted with our informants and resonated with the collectors, as well.

Presentation:

Folklore Collection Project Presentation

Items:

Collectors: 

Matthew Degtyar, Julian Jimenez, Jasmine Li, Kai Lord, Haley Zierdan

Tags/Keywords: 

  • Nursery rhymes
  • German
  • Chinese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • Verbal folklore
  • Entertainment
  • Lullaby