We're lucky to have recordings of 3 of the Telugu rhymes and 4 of the Tamil songs from India. Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam have been recently added to our collection too. Enjoy! - Lisa
English
I Hear Thunder (Nursery Rhyme) 
Hindi
English
Akar bakar bombay bo (Counting-out Rhyme)
Counting Song (Nursery Rhyme)
Fish is the Queen of Water (Nursery Rhyme)
Johnny Johnny. Yes, Papa. (Nursery Rhyme)
Little Miss Muffet (Nursery Rhyme)
Mary Had a Little Lamb (Nursery Rhyme) Midi
Potato Says (Nursery Rhyme)
Sleep, Baby, Sleep (Lullaby)
There Was a Thirsty Crow (Nursery Rhyme)
Tick Tick Tick (Nursery Rhyme)
Malayalam
English
Marathi
English
Rain, Rain, Come Here (Nursery Rhyme)
Tamil
English
Chipmunk Chipmunk, Come Come Come 
MP3 Midi
MP3 Midi Short, Short Duck (Nursery Rhyme)
Rock Baby Rock (Lullaby) MP3
Telugu
English
In a Pretty Lake (Riddle) MP3
Come Sweet Moon (Lullaby) MP3
My Little Sweetie (Rhyme)
Urdu
English
KEY TO SYMBOLS
- - this song has sheet music
- Midi - this song has a Midi tune
- MP3 - this song has an MP3 recording
- - this song has a Video recording
Here are some of Mama Lisa's recent posts about the music, culture and traditions of India:
Reduplications are words or phrases that contain a duplicated element. An example is the phrase "riffraff". The two parts of the word are almost the same (i.e. "riff" and "raff"), but they have a small change (the vowels). When you have a rhyming reduplication, the duplicated element rhymes with the original element in the phrase. ... Read more »
Open Culture has a page of free language learning links covering 40 languages. Here are some of the languages you can find links for… Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili,... Read more »
We take a lot of hikes and recently we’ve been coming upon arrangements of stones stacked on top of each other like those in the photo. I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s a significance to these sculptures? My cousin, James Yannucci, who has travelled all over Asia and lives in China saw my photo and... Read more »
Tamarind Sauce is a sweet and sour chutney from India. I call it a sauce because it’s thinner and more liquid than common chutneys. It’s often served with poppadom, a crispy round wafer. Tamarind sauce is hard to find in stores in the US. Since my husband and I love it, I decided to learn how... Read more »
The Lion and The Hare This is one of the cycle stories from India in which the weaker animal gets the better of the stronger one through wit. It’s from the Panchatantra, a collection of animal tales and fables from the 3rd century BC or earlier. The tales were originally in Sanskrit. Here you... Read more »- We received this Urdu rhyme without a translation… Abulal babulal Babu ka topi lal 11 kantae kachha kurma Pakka chor. Submitted by Nasrin I’m not sure if it’s one or two rhymes If anyone can help with an English translation, and/or let us know how many rhymes it is, please comment below. Thanks! Mama Lisa Read more »
Here are some new books posted online by Project Gutenberg… Indian Fairy Tales translated by Mary Stokes The Brown Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang Celtic Fairy Tales edited by Joseph Jacobs Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling 500 Rätsel und Rätselscherze für jung und alt by... Read more »- John wrote asking for help with a lullaby: Hi Lisa, My father was born in India, Granny’s family lived in India, between the early 1800’s and 1947. There is an Indian Children’s Lullaby, Ninnie Buba Ninnie, sung to my father and many generations of children. I am seeking the words and translation of the original,... Read more »
- Chanda Mama is a song from India about the moon. Different versions exist in the various languages of India. This one is in the Telugu language, a language mainly spoken in southern India. Playing for Change made the Chanda Mama video with musicians around the world. Playing for Change creates music all... Read more »
- I came across a video for Banana Dosai today. It looks yummy! We’ve been trying to ease our kids into Indian food – we love it and we’d like to expose our children to the varied cuisines of the world. Some Indian food is too spicy for younger American kids. This... Read more »
RELATED LINKS
Telugu Nursery Rhymes
(In Telugu)
Telugu Literary and Cultural Association
(In Telugu and English)
Telugu page for kids
