Mots d'Heures


Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The D'Antin Manuscript, published in 1967 by Luis d'Antin van Rooten, is purportedly a collection of poems written in archaic French with learned glosses. In fact, they are English-language nursery rhymes written homophonically as a nonsensical French text ; that is, as an English-to-French homophonic translation. The result is not merely the English nursery rhyme but that nursery rhyme as it would sound if spoken in English by someone with a strong French accent. Even the manuscript's title, when spoken aloud, sounds like "Mother Goose's Rhymes" with a strong French accent.
Here is van Rooten's version of Humpty Dumpty:

Secondary use

Ten of the Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames have been set to music by Lawrence Whiffin.

Similar works

An earlier example of homophonic translation is "Frayer Jerker" in Anguish Languish.
A later book in the English-to-French genre is N'Heures Souris Rames, published in 1980 by Ormonde de Kay. It contains some forty nursery rhymes, among which are Coucou doux de Ledoux , Signe, garçon. Neuf Sikhs se pansent and Hâte, carrosse bonzes .
A similar work in German-English is Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript by John Hulme. The dust jacket, layout and typography are very similar in style and appearance to the original Mots D'Heures albeit with a different selection of nursery rhymes.
Marcel Duchamp draws parallels between the method behind Mots d'Heures and certain works of Raymond Roussel.

Publication history