Would Anyone Know a Norwegian Song that Sounds Like, “Baby Bana Mama kishakana”?
November 1st, 2022

Gibson A Campbell wrote asking for help with a Norwegian Lullaby. Here’s his email:

“I found your website and was hoping you could help. My great grandmother was Norwegian and there is a lullaby that my family always sang. Now that I have a baby daughter of my own I have been searching for it as I don’t know the origins or real words.

Excuse my spelling or words here as I don’t speak Norwegian but was wondering if you’ve ever heard it or can identify it?

Baby Bana
Mama kishakana
Papa kishka yingapoor
Yingapoor a shishapoor

I’m just a poor boy
Haven’t got a penny

Lol I know it sounds made up and maybe it is but didn’t know if it was familiar to you.

Thanks in advance!
Gibson

If anyone can help, please comment below. Thanks! -Mama Lisa

This article was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2022 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Children's Songs, Countries & Cultures, Languages, Mama Lisa, Norway, Norwegian, Norwegian Children's Songs, Questions, Readers Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Would Anyone Know a Norwegian Song that Sounds Like, “Baby Bana Mama kishakana”?”

  1. Siri Randem Says:
    April 2nd, 2025 at 7:06 pm

    Hi,
    I have gone through your text and some words may have a meaning. It would be easier to recognise if I had the tune. You may listen to some Norwegian lullabies on my YouTube channel and see if they match?https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJv1W8VuwFnRvjtvGWrLh5HlJNhyMtnnp

    Otherwise, Baby is Baby and Bana is an old form/dialect form of barna (children). Mama is ‘mamma’, Papa is ‘pappa’. Then it gets more difficult:
    Kish.. may be ‘kysj’/’kysje’/ ‘hysj’ (shush/hush) /bysse (rocked to sleep)
    Yinga… may mean ‘gynge’ (rock)

    Baby is a fairly new loan word from English. More common in an old song would be ‘bua’ (booa) or ‘bya'(beea) which means go to sleep.

    For instance:

    Bua barnet (singular) barna (plural)
    Mamma kysje kan, han (Mom can rock him him/hush him)
    Pappa kysj’er, gynge på (Daddy is hushing, rock away / keep rocking)
    Gynge på (rock on/keep rocking) og (and) kysje på (hush on, keep lulling)
    [Jeg er en liten gutt
    Har ikke en skilling (shilling)]

    I have searched for a song matching these words, but I haven’t found it. It may be a local variant that is not well known.
    One Norwegian lullaby has a line about not rocking the baby unless ‘I get a biscuit’ ( kavring- half a crunchy, halved bun) and ‘kauring’ used to be a word for some coin value (like a penny). Kauring is archaic and has gone out of use.

    Sorry, that is as far as I got.

    Best regards,

    Siri Randem

Leave a Reply