--Dave, ...what?

(This is part of the Early Indo-European Online collection at the University of Texas, which I keep meaning to have a proper look at when I have a few months and lots of good language-learning intentions to spare).

Wonder if any Hittite scholar has ever named his or her son Uriah? Strikes me as a name that could do with a comeback, Dickens be damned.

Your verse demonstrates that all great poems should be ear'd as well as read.

Dr. Whom: Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

Forgive me,
it was out of copyright
and parodies are protected
by decree of court.

I now have to add the Four Locusts' version to this collection.

"A Hard Day's Night", by contrast, is performed as a Shakespearian recital (my brain keeps flinging up Richard II as the appropriate historical play to provide context) complete with vast emotional dynamics and shadings.

It certainly adds a new dimension to hearing the originals.

Peter Sellers does "A Hard Days Night" in the manner of Richard III The badge on the had is rather a give-away as to which Richard.

Some of the long pauses are in precisely the right wrong place.

Arguably this is a couple of weeks late, since the traditional (Hebrew) equivalent of Valentine's Day (15 Av) was almost 3 weeks ago. :) I don't know how far back that tradition goes, though (at least 2000 years, though), or whether nearby civilizations also had such traditions.

--Dave, some patterns appear to be timeless

ps: now with free serial comma

With love like that
You know you should be glad

Elevated Plumb-Lines, Mash-ada, or
- one babblefruit, reduplicated

I have raided
your heart
for the love
you keep there

and which you were
probably saving
for later
extravagant lifting

Forgive me
as I forgive you;
I was led
into temptation -

dulce et frijorem est,
just sayin'.

(We all remember the old game where you put something back and forth through Babelfish and watch it get stranger each time, yes? If done right it acquires hooks and divergences and linguistic tentacles stretching off in all directions, much like Herewiss' sorcerous constructions...)

I was assuming that some of those are original compositions? Or are they all translations of modern songs?

It could end up as one of those, sure, but in this case I'm confident the English translation given on the competition page is correct, though strictly speaking the attribution is incorrect: Groban's version is widely attested but really only a gloss on work already done by Brendan Graham.

BTW, the "Four Locusts" song is wonderful not only because of the ancient languages, but because the phrasing and cadence of the English translation is pitch-perfect. If I didn't know it was a joke and you had told me it was a JNES translation I wouldn't think twice.

There are 4 different types of locusts in Joel 1:4.

The hoppping locust is clearly Ringo.