chunky monkey had a cow
but he hasn't got it now

the Poem, © Jonny Butler, 1997


We at the chunky monkey translation society believe the Poem, shown above, to be the pinnacle of human poetic achievement. We work together towards hastening the day when every speaker of every language in the world has the opportunity to read the Poem in their mother tongue. Below is a list of all the translations we have so far. If you can add another one to our collection, please send an email to Tom Moore, the head of our research department, at chateau_boeuf@hotmail.com. This project uses unicode to display text in many different writing systems on a single page.

*** Added: translation into Vietnamese. Thank you Nguyễn Hữu Dụng ***

Added: translations into Igbo and Nigerian Pidgin English. Many thanks to Ōsitá Ọnumá.

English

chunky monkey had a cow
but he hasn't got it now

Jonny Butler

German

Grosse Affe hatte eine Kuh
aber jetzt hat er sie nicht

Tom Moore

Welsh

Roedd buwch gyda mynci tafelleg
ond dydy hi ddim gyda fe nawr

David Chan (陳惠明)

French

Le singe trapu avait une vache
mais il ne l'a pas maintenant

Tom Moore

Chinese

肥壯的猴子撐涇有一頭母牛
但是它現在沒有母牛了
(image of text)
[Mandarin] Fei Zhuang De Hou Zhi Cheng Jing You Yi Tou Mu Yiu
Dan Shi Ta Xian Zhai Mei You Mu Yiu Le

Daniel Tang

Urdu

Barrey bunder ke pass eik Gheey
thee jo ab us ke pass naheen hey

Abid Suleri

Irish

Bhí bó ag an moncaí téagartha
ach níl sé aige anois

Pádraig Byrne, Michelle Crilly

Spanish

El mono gordo tenía una vaca
pero él no la tiene ahora

Tom Moore, Chuy

Italian

La scimmione aveva una vacca
ma adesso non ce l'ha più

Marco Cimarosti

Latin

lacertosa simia vaccam habebat
sed nunc non habet

Thalia Chan

Finnish

Paksu-Paviaanilla oli lehmä
mut' eipä ole enää

Tuukka Asplund

Norwegian

Tjukke ape hadde en ku
men han har den ikke nu

Colin Hauge

Afrikaans

Chunky Monkey het a koei gehad
Maar hy het dit nie nou nie

Steven Rapeport

Swedish

Tjocka apan hade en ko
Men han har den inte nu

Margie Jonell and Kristina Yarrington

Hungarian

Az óriás (és eros) majomnak volt egy tehene,
de már nincs meg neki.

Bácsi Zoltán, Jon Cross

Polish

Przykości małpa miała krowę,
ale teraz nie ma

Karolina Szymon

Basque

Tximino pottolo batek behi bat zeukan,
Baina orain ez dauka

Estibaliz Sainz Etxeberria

Japanese

太った猿は雌牛を持っていたが、
今は持っていない。
(image of text)
Futotta saru wa meushi o motte ita ga
ima wa motte inai

Keizo Kozono (小園慶造)

Ancient Greek

ηὁ βαρυς πιθηκος έστι τῃ αγελαδᾳ
άλλα ούκ έστι αύτῃ νυν
Ho barus pithekos esti te ageladai
Alla ouk esti aute nun

Thalia Chan

Korean

똥똥한 윈숭이가 한때는 소를 가지고 있었네
하지만 더이상 없다네
(image of text)
Toong-toong-hahn won-soong-yee-gah hahn-tae-neun so-reul gah-ji-go issut-neh
Hah-ji-mahn duh-yee-sang up-tah-neh

Anonymous

Milanese Italian

El scimiôn el gh'eva ôna vaca
ma adèss la ghe l'ha pùu

Marco Cimarosti

Esperanto

Dika Simio jam havis bovinon
sed li ne havas plu ĝin nun

Brion Vibber

Interlingua

Simia le Grasse habeva un vacca
sed il non habe lo ora

Brion Vibber

Lojban

la plana smani pu ponse le bakni
.ije na ca go'i

John Cowan

Marathi

जाड्या माकडाकडे एक गाय होती
पण नाही आहे आता त्याच्याकडे ती
(image of text)
zádyá mákdákade ek gáy hoti
pan atá náhi áhe tyáchyákade ti

Shirish Kalele (शिरीष काळेले)

Hindi

मोटे बंदर के पास एक गाय थी
पर अब वह उसके पास है नहीं
mote bandar ke pás ek gáy thi
hai voh uske pás lekin ab nahin

Shirish Kalele (शिरीष काळेले), Anil Goyal

Nigerian Pidgin English

Gbántị mọnkị wéy gét kọw
nō géttám sō téé

Ōsitá Ọnumá

Igbo

Nukwu éwé were éfi
ewegui ya ugbá

Ōsitá Ọnumá

Vietnamese

Con khỉ lùn và mập có một con bò
Nhưng bây giờ nó không còn nữa.
(image of text)

Nguyễn Hữu Dụng

If you have any grammatical corrections, or if you are outraged at our inability to do justice to the expressive power of your language, then please rectify the situation by sending an email to chateau_boeuf@hotmail.com.

A note about non-ASCII characters

The translations which are in non-Roman writing systems will only display correctly if your browser supports the Unicode character set and can access suitable fonts. Level 1 implementation support is sufficient for all translations except Ancient Greek, Hindi and Marathi; for these, Level 1 support is not sufficient to display the accents or ligatures correctly.

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