Can Someone Help with a Kids Song that’s either Belarussian, Russian or Yiddish?
January 25th, 2009

Martin wrote:

Hello from a sunny but quite COLD New York City!

I am wondering if anyone knows the answer to this. Not being too knowledgeable about the Belarusian language, I’m assuming that this song my maternal grandmother used to sing to me when I was in my single digits was in Russian or Yiddish or a combination of any or all of the three languages, something that sounded like:

Kot, mama, kot, mama, kot, kot, kot
Ona dyela masu
Manichka klapot.

Does anyone have the full lyrics and musical notation for this song please, and what language(s) constitute the song? Please email as soon as possible. Thank you very much? Martin Peck

If anyone if familiar with this song, and could provide any information about it, please let us know anything you can in the comments below. We’d also love an English translation of possible.

Thanks!

Mama Lisa

This article was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Belarus, Belarusian, Children's Songs, Countries & Cultures, Israel, Israeli Children's Songs, Languages, Mama Lisa, Questions, Readers Questions, Russia, Russian, Russian Children's Songs, USA, Yiddish, Yiddish Children's Songs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “Can Someone Help with a Kids Song that’s either Belarussian, Russian or Yiddish?”

  1. Sally Says:
    June 12th, 2009 at 7:20 am

    I dont know the song myself but was able to find the lyrics in russian:
    Кот, мама, кот, мама, кот, кот, кот. Он наделал много доченьке забот

    *****

    Кот, мама, кот, мама, кот, кот, кот. Он наделал много доченьке забот

  2. Masha Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    I think it’s in Russian, but has a hebrew/yiddish word:

    Kot, mama, kot, mama, kot, kot, kot
    Ona delala matzu
    Manichka klapot.

    cat, mama, cat, mama, cat, cat, cat
    She made matza
    Manechka klapot

    I think dyela masu means made matza (matzo for passover)
    Manechka is the name of a girl Manya (nickname for Masha/Mara/Miryam)
    klapot is probably not a word, it’s just a baby word that your mama made up to make it rhyme and cute…or it could be “hlopot” (meaning troubles), or klopi (bed bugs), which makes less sense

    so it could cat mama made matza, and made trouble for little Manya
    or cat made matza for little Manya

    Since your name is Martin, maybe your mama liked to call you Manya as a nickname…or Monya (that’s more of a boy’s nickname)

  3. shimke (stanley) levine Says:
    April 11th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    In Sally’s Russian version the word is not matsu but ‘mnogo’ meaning a lot.

  4. Lisa Says:
    July 9th, 2014 at 10:57 pm

    Perry wrote:

    Hi. I just discovered your web site today. I have been part of a family history discussion with some of my cousins, and one of the topics was a song my Belarusan grandmother would sing in Yiddish, while holding her open hands over me and rotating them back and forth. This was when i was an infant in a baby carriage. My mother told me the song was, phonetically, Kush-in-kee. That is all I remember of it. It is more than my cousins remember. Have you ever heard of it?

  5. Noah Chinitz Says:
    October 30th, 2019 at 1:07 am

    I need similar help!

    Yiddish song for babies, tonse bisila?!

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