Asturian-American Migration Forum

After showing my mom this site, a flood of memories started gushing from her. She told me that my abuelo would sing her a song in Asturianu. Does anyone know of a song called "Una noite en la era do trigo"? If so, would love to know more about it. I'm not certain about the spelling of the Asturian words.

A night on the wheat threshing floor (native speakers of asturianu, please correct me)? I haven't heard of it, but perhaps some of our members have. Posts in our forums often reopen my father's memories, and I am often astonished at the detail of his recall (families and names, who lived where, etc.), and at 90, he is one of the last sources of memory available to us (and certainly to me).

Please encourage your mom to explore her memories, write them down for us, and share them with all of us. This is oral history: it is something that can never be replaced once lost.

Bob

Well Bob, I think the song might be Gallego. I did a little research (all right, I googled the words to the song) and I found this site that had part of the song. And an explanation.

http://www.degalicia.org/planeta-galego ... le&sid=258

I also found another site, http://albedu.blogspot.com/2007/06/gali ... -agua.html, that had the words in the native language (Asturianu? Gallego?) as well as in Castellano. Here are the words:

Unha noite na eira do trigo
o reflexo do branco lugar
unha nena choraba sin trégolas
os desdes dun ingrato galán.
E a coitada entre queixas decia,
xa no mundo non teño a ningén,
vou morrer e non ven os meus ollos
os olliños do meu doce ben.
Os seus ecos de melancolía
camiñaban nas alas do vento
e o lamento repetía,
vou morrer e non ven o meu ben.
Lonxe dela, de pe sobre a popa
dunha leve negreiro vapor
emigrado camiño de America
vai o pobre e infeliz Amador
e o mirar ás xentís anduriñas
cara a terra que deixa,
cruzar que pudera dar volta, pensaba,
que pudera convosco voar.
Mais a aves e o buque fuxian
sin oir seus amargos lamentos
solo os ventos repetian,
que pudera convosco voar.
Noites craras de aromas de lúa
donde entón qué tristeza en pos hai
pros que viron chorar unha nena
pros que viron un varco marchar
dun amor celestial verdadeiro
quedou solo de bágoas a proba
unha coba nun auteiro
un cadavre no fondo do mar.

Thanks for your help and quick response, my mom is amazed how this internet thing works.

Yes, that does look like Galician, not Ästurian.

In Asturian it might be something like: "Una nueche na era de trigu", but I can't find anything like that on Google.

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Sí, éste parece como gallego, no asturianu.

En asturianu, sería algo como: "Una nueche na era de trigu", pero no lo encontré en Google.

The Daysi's abuelo could be sing that song in gallego or gallego-asturiano. Was he from Western Asturias? There are several conceyos where the native language is Galician or a mixing up of Galician and Asturian languages.

El era de Taramundi.

This is a typical emigrant song, and although I never heard it, it is very likely that folks from the Western counties bordering on Galicia all knew it and sang it in our great-grandparents' days. We have to keep in mind that Asturians from that area who sailed for Cuba did so from the Galician ports of El Ferrol and La Coruña.

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Es una canción típica de emigrantes, y aunque yo nunca la oí, es muy probable que en los concejos del Occidente que lindan con Galicia todo el mundo la conociera y la cantara en la época de nuestros abuelos y bisabuelos. Hay que tener en cuenta que la mayoría de los asturianos de la zona occidental se embarcaban rumbo a Cuba en los puertos gallegos de El Ferrol y La Coruña.

A Coruña also served as a point of exit from Asturias to Ellis Island (via Liverpool, including my own grandparents in 1913). Other relatives went to Cuba and thence elsewhere.

Speaking as a non-expert, I tend to see castellano, asturianu, gallego and Portuguese as as continuum (although each as a separate language), especially if older forms of the languages and their various dialects are considered. Songs, especially, tend to preserve older forms of language past their contemporary use. Consider for example the English Christmas carol "God rest ye merry gentlemen." I doubt that one in fifty Americans could explain what "God rest ye merry gentlemen" means without being sidetracked by the idea of "merry gentlemen.".

The county of Taramundi does, in fact, border on Galicia. The town of Taramundi is only a mile or two from the border with the Galician province of Lugo.

If I remember correctly, Is (Paul) has told me that the western-most counties of Asturias speak what is essentially Galician. So I think Vitor is right in his explanation that the song is gallego.

By the way, Taramundi is a beautiful and fascinating place, well worth a visit.

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El consejo de Taramundi limita con Galicia. El pueblo de Taramundi está situada solamente un or dos kilometros de la frontera con la provinica gallega de Lugo.

Por lo que recuerdo, Is (Paul) me ha dicho que en los consejos asturianos más occidentales hablan esencialmente gallego. Por lo tanto, creo, Vitor tiene razón en explicar que la canción es gallega.

A propósito, Taramundi es un sitio bellísimo y fascinante, que merece una visita.

Yes! Thanks to a website Terechu recommended in one of her posts, I was able to see a whole bunch of beautiful pictures of Taramundi. I showed them to my mother who was very moved to see the town in which her father was born.

Taramundi is a place out of time
As Bob's grandparents my mother's grandparent departed from A Coruña to Ellis Island (via Liverpool) in 1916. I think this Galician port was the main point of exit for the most Asturian emigrants to US, not only for westerners