Counting, a bright and original genre of folklore, has always attracted children. After all, she not only organizes a children's game, but also allows the kids to throw out their emotions. It is not surprising that short poems are easily learned and passed on from generation to generation. Meanwhile, some texts are not so easy to understand, and perhaps they contain secret messages. One of these rhymes is the famous “Eniki-beniki”.
Counting rhyme options
The ancient rhyme "Eniki-beniki" has a number of variations. Some of them date back to the Soviet era, since they feature a “Soviet” sailor (the phrase is also found in variations of “drunken sailor” or “curly-haired sailor”).
Other versions contain fictitious words ("abstruse" counting), similar to spells. There is even a very long patter counting rhyme where, along with the notorious dumplings, almost all known food products are listed.
There are also options with “made up words”:
And here is the “translated into understandable language” version:
Eniki - beniks - brooms - brooms!
Boleks - leliki - sawdust - rollers!
Lolek and Bolek are characters from a Polish cartoon that first appeared in 1964
But the tongue twister mentioned above, of course, is no longer quite childish:
Video: children's karaoke song based on the famous rhyme
The mysterious story of the counting rhyme
In various versions of the children's rhyme, the mysterious combination “eniki-beniki” (or “eni-beni”) is invariably found. Due to their stability, these words are obviously not a random collection of sounds. Linguists have a number of versions on this matter.
Old Russian word
In Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary, the concept “benka” comes from the Yaroslavl province. It designates a piece of utensils - a fork. Then the initial sentence of the rhyme makes sense: with the help of beniki it is quite possible to eat dumplings. "Eniki" may be a corruption of the word "other", or it may simply be a made-up word to create rhyme and rhythm.
In V. Dahl’s explanatory dictionary, the word “benka” means fork (in the Yaroslavl province)
In the 60s 20th century Igor Tarabukin, a journalist and poet, an employee of the satirical magazine "Crocodile", thought about the interpretation of the counting rhyme and began to study dictionaries. Having discovered the word “benka”, he even wrote a poem “Eniki-beniki ate dumplings”...:
- Who are Eniki?
Who are the beniks?
I asked about it
But no one gave an answer.
I dug through little by little
Dictionaries-piggy banks
And I found that the word “benki”
It's simple - forks.
Benki, or beniki,
The saying to them is eniki!
But a spoon can't
Eat okroshka yourself!
And bowls can't
Eat a bunch of radishes!..
Why beniki
What if they eat dumplings?
Because the word is
Outdated, no matter how sorry it is,
And one day from the buffet
Moved to the counting room.
And the counting is like this -
It's a word game
So, even beniki
They can eat dumplings!
Having discovered the word “benka” in the dictionary, Igor Tarabukin even wrote a poem about it
By the way, the word “kletz”, which appears in the version about the sailor, is most likely derived from the word “dumplings” - pieces of dough cooked in boiling water, milk or broth. Thus, they were eaten along with dumplings.
Game of dice
Medieval German knights, when playing dice, uttered the words “Einec beinec doppelte,” which means “a single die has been doubled.” Over time, this saying penetrated into the Polish language, and then further to the east.
While playing dice medieval knights often used an expression similar to the words “Eniki-beniki”
Prayer
The ancient prayer of the Turkic peoples began with the words “ennyke-bennyke” (“Mother Almighty”). This is how they addressed the female deity Umai. With the adoption of Christianity, the meaning of the words was lost, and they became nonsense, which migrated to children's rhymes.
The Turkic peoples had a deity, Umai, whose prayer began with words that sounded like “ennyke bennyke”
Numbers
The words “ene, bene, slave, kwinter, finter” may represent modified numerals. They are similar to the Anglo-Welsh account - the one that has been used since ancient times for trade (“aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp”).
Ancient Greek myth
The beginning of “Eni beni, ricky faki...” is very similar to the sound of the Latin text:
- Aeneas bene rem publicam facit,
In turbo urbem sene Tiberi jacit.
Deus, deus, crassus deus,
Bacchus!
This is a Greek poem that talks about Aeneas - the hero Trojan War, who founded a city-state on the banks of the Tiber. Latin used to be very popular in Europe, it was taught Latin language and in seminaries and others educational institutions Russian Empire. Over time, the poem was forgotten, but the lines remained in the counting rhyme.
The beginning of one of the versions of the counting rhyme is reminiscent of the beginning of a Latin poem about Aeneas, the hero of the Trojan War
The children's rhyme “Eniki-beniki” is shrouded in an aura of mystery. Although linguists have various interpretations of her initial strange words, they remain only versions. Meanwhile, the children's world itself is mysterious and difficult to understand: perhaps that is why folklore works are popular there.
According to experts, for our children, funny rhymes and funny and even sometimes incomprehensible counting rhymes turn out to be the most wonderful teachers, speech therapists and psychologists. Without the verbal game contained in the counting rhymes, the child would take a very long time to learn to master speech perfectly.
All versions of chants, counting rhymes, teasers, tongue twisters and other “literature” help children express their feelings, thoughts and experiences. These poems, such as “eniki-beniki ate dumplings” or the hedgehog-in-the-fog rhyme, are passed down from generation to generation without any memorization. Such a strange, but easy verse is remembered by the child on the fly, used in games with friends, all the children remember it and pass it on and on.
A counting table is, first of all, a rhyming verse that can be used to easily determine who will lead the game. In addition to this simple function, this verse has three more psychologically important functions. First, it gives a feeling of luck; whoever it points to will be lucky.
The second function is that the counting rhyme allows you to demonstrate trust in each other. Typically, the counting player touches the players in the solar plexus area, and such a touch carries with it a level of affection and trust. Well, the third function allows you to configure children to fair play without deception, cultivates in them feelings of honesty and camaraderie.
Any counting rhyme, in addition to developing such necessary and useful feelings in a child, also allows him to train his speech. Such a game verse will be understandable and close to the child, because in any rhyme the first place is not the plot, but the rhythm and the ability to pronounce words separately, highlighting them. This way the baby will develop not only memory, imagination and fantasy, but also a sense of rhythm.
There are a huge number of examples of counting rhymes, and we present only the most popular of them.
Hush, mice, cat on the roof.
Those who didn't hear came out!
Across the river, across the bridge
Stretch the bull's tail!
We shared an orange
There are many of us, but he is alone.
This slice is for the hedgehog,
This slice is for the swift,
This slice is for ducklings,
This slice is for kittens,
This slice is for the beaver,
And for the wolf - the peel.
He is angry with us - trouble!!!
Run away somewhere!
Lunokhod, Lunokhod,
He walks forward on the moon.
It will take him a long time to walk there.
Now you should drive!
Goat in the barn
Crust on bread
Who will find them?
He will lead the game.
The car was walking through a dark forest
For some interest.
Inte-inte-interest.
Exit on the letter "S".
The squirrel was riding on a cart,
I distributed nuts to everyone:
Some are two, some are three -
Get out of the circle!
Tomorrow it will fly from the sky
Blue-blue-blue whale.
If you believe, stop and wait,
If you don't believe me, come out!
About the origin
How often adults are surprised when they listen to the texts of children's rhymes. For example, it is completely unclear who “ene, bene, slave, kwinter, finter” and the like are and how they ended up in a children’s poem.
It turns out that this counting is very old and originally “ene, bene, slave, quinter, finter” came from the English-Welsh count, which sounded like “aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp”. Gradually, this English-Welsh counting spread throughout England, where they began to use it in everyday life, and the children adapted the funny words spoken by adults to suit themselves and a funny counting text was obtained.
The version of the song, where some eniki ate dumplings, is known to both adults and children. But there are also less common versions, in which the Eniki did not eat anything, but rather the counting itself is more similar to the original:
Eniki-beniki-brooms-brooms!
Rollers-rollers-sawdust-rollers!
Full version
Of course, no one can say with certainty what the original counting rhyme was, which was used by children for the first time. This is the so-called “oral creativity”, which was distributed without being written down
There is one complete, Russian version, where the mysterious beniks ate varinichki:
Eniki-beniki ate dumplings
Eniki-beniki - dumplings!
A Soviet sailor came out.
And there is an even more incomprehensible, confusing and mysterious little counting rhyme, which is more similar to the original one that came to us from England through all of Europe.
Eni-beni-res
Quinter-winter-jes
Yene-bene-slave
Finter-quinter-toad.
“Ene, bene, slave, kwinter, finter” - many see some distorted numerals in this little counting rhyme, but what kind? Efim Shchup unearthed an old English-language monograph dedicated to the nursery rhymes of the peoples of Europe, and found out the origin of the “eniki-beniki”!
Now there will be a little unveiling of a mystery that has periodically surfaced in the community since 2005. We'll talk about “ene, bene, slave, kwinter, finter” and “enikah-benikah”
It was repeatedly noted in discussions that these were, apparently, some distorted numerals, but the original language could not be established. I came across an old English-language monograph on the Internet dedicated to the nursery rhymes of the peoples of Europe and their origins.
Bolton, speaking in the last chapter about the general origin of European rhymes, refers to an even older article by a respected member of the British Philological Society, the author of which, Ellis, examines in detail the original source of the rhymes.
Apparently, “ene, bene, slave, quinter, fint[er]” goes back to the so-called Anglo-Welsh score (in the original - “Anglo-Cymric Score”, that is, “Anglo-Cymric twenty”)
What is Anglo-Welsh counting and why is it so little known? We are talking about a peculiar pidginized series of numerals used in barter transactions between persons of Celtic nationality and visiting Anglo-Saxons (as well as Danes, Norwegians and speakers of other, non-mutually intelligible Celtic languages)
More modern sources hypothesize that the Anglo-Welsh counting was not originally Anglo-Welsh, but served as the oldest unified set of numerals in the communication of the aboriginal Celtic peoples of the British Isles, in whose native languages their own numerals over time began to sound too different due to noticeable phonetic shifts.
In his monograph, Bolton quotes Ellis, comparing one of the variants of English-Welsh counting, borrowed from his article, with modern Welsh numerals taken from the official grammar of the Welsh language of that time.
Here are the English-Welsh pidginized numerals: "aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp, ithy, mithy, owera, lowera"
And here are the numerals from the original language with recognizable Indo-European roots: "un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech, saith, wyth, naw"
If you look closely, a kind of “optimization” clearly appears in the English-Welsh counting - seven (mithy) is clearly secondarily formed from six (ithy) by simply adding a consonant, nine (lowera) is similarly secondarily formed from eight (owera). The five (pimp) and four (pedwar) clearly influenced the three (para) and two (peina) with their initial consonant [p], replacing their initial vowels by analogy with [p]. But "peina, para, peddera, pimp" it is much easier to remember as “pseudo-ablauted” forms of a certain paradigm, united by alliteration of the initial consonant.
Remember the Anglo-Saxons' love of alliteration in character names (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and dozens of other, lesser-known characters whose parts of their names begin with the same consonant - this tradition is much older than the era of animation). Remember all these “gehen, ging, gegangen” and “do, did, done” of the Germanic languages - I think the mnemonic benefit of the modification "peina, para, peddera, pimp" it will become clear immediately.
Despite all the dissimilarity between the numerals of the English-Welsh counting and the numerals of the Welsh language, the undoubted origin of the first from the second becomes clear if we look at the formation of the numerals from 15 to 19.
Anglo-Welsh: "bumfit, ain-a-bumfit, pein-a-bumfit, par-a-bumfit, pedder-a-bumfit"
Welsh: "pymtheg, un-ar-bymtheg, dau-ar-bymtheg, tri-ar-bymtheg, pedwar-ar-bymtheg"
The tradition of forming numerals after fifteen, unique to the Welsh language, as complex forms of the form “one-and-fifteen, two-and-fifteen” is fully preserved in English-Welsh counting, not to mention the numerals from 10 to 14:
Anglo-Welsh: "dig, ain-a-dig, pein-a-dig, par-a-dig, pedder-a-dig"
Welsh: "deg, un-ar-ddeg, denddeg, tri-ar-ddeg, pedwar-ar-ddeg"
Now let's look at the entire series of numerals:
Thus, we are talking about the most ancient counting rhyme, which grew on a very specific semantic soil and pursued a very specific pragmatic goal: to be remembered as easily as possible and, in the case of intense intercultural contacts, to ensure mutually understandable counting out loud when it came to the exchange of prisoners, trade in livestock, etc. P.
But the story was just beginning. The mysterious English-Welsh counting quickly spread throughout England, where even grandmothers used this “hairdryer” to count knots when knitting, shepherds to count sheep, and boys incorporated the gibberish that seemed funny to them into their own counting rhymes.
Later, “eine-beine-bara” penetrated the continent, where it was so popular with the cunning German scoundrels that it was remade an infinite number of times. The similarity of “eine-beine” with the saying of German dice players “einec beinec doppelte”, already discussed in the community, quickly led to the mutation of the incomprehensible English-Welsh “one-two” into “enige benige”, which is more meaningful to the German ear. Misheard lyrics, anyone?
Similarly, the apparent lack of semantic load in the remaining words of the rhyme led to the fact that the size of the verse and the alliteration formula were primarily borrowed, and the verbal content could range from the canonical “ene bene” to the improvised “rumpelti stumpelti” - which is the first and second according to the meaning (due to its absence) did not differ, and therefore they were synonyms!
Soon the infectious motif of the Anglo-Celtic rhyme spread throughout Europe, growing like a superstrate through the substrate of autochthonous (and worse remembered?) rhymes. Often gibberish interspersed with meaningful words in one language or another, but the situation was “corrected” as soon as the children’s creativity was borrowed from a neighboring language.
For example, the German (dialect) rhyme
Enige, denige, Tintefass
Geh in die Schule und lerne was
Kommst du Heim und kannst du nichts
Kriegst de Buggel volle Wichts
When borrowed back into English it turned into
Inica, binica, tinske wos
Gayste hole and learnste wos
Conste, Hinan, conste, Nichs
Strixte bucle full of vicks
The process could be repeated cyclically, turn after turn, with the result that usually only “eniki-beniki” and one or two other words from the English-Welsh original survived. But various kinds“Pig Latin”, fragments of more ancient rhymes, sayings, jokes, and simply pure children’s improvisation multiplied within the framework of the original poetic formula.
Things got to the point where, through contacts with the first settlers, the English-Welsh account was adopted by the Indians North America who used it for its intended purpose (in transactions with whites and in counting booty in hunting and war). Over time, whites stopped using the Anglo-Welsh counting, forgetting about its origin, and the name “eniki-beniki” in America was assigned... " Indian counting" The Indians denied their involvement in the invention of this counting, but continued to use it, gradually modifying slang numerals and inventing new counting options.
Notes
1. The degree of influence of the Anglo-Welsh counting on the content and form of continental counting rhymes is still a matter of debate. There is a point of view that in ancient times, counting rhymes played an important ritual and practical role in society, and, following the principle of convergent evolution, they independently arose and acquired a similar form among different peoples. According to this hypothesis, the Anglo-Welsh counting, in essence and purpose differing little from any other counting rhyme, developed in a similar direction and only for this reason is so similar to the counting rhymes of other countries, but could not serve as a superstrate or prototype for them. A compromise hypothesis states that continental counting served as a convenient substrate for English-Welsh counting due to significant initial similarities with it for the reason described above, but still underwent significant assimilation in terms of content and specific word forms.
2. The popularity of Anglo-Welsh counting among that part of the British population that had no contact with the Celts can be explained by the Old Testament prohibition regarding counting people and animals and the superstition that stemmed from it. King David, having treacherously conducted a census of the ancient Israelites, by this very act indirectly doubted God's promise to make the descendants of Abraham innumerable like sea sand, and for educational purposes, God sent a plague to the Jews. More prudent characters like Saul and Moses considered the Jews to be safe - collecting half a shekel from each and then counting the coins. Since biblical legends in the Middle Ages were projected by the people onto daily life, extrapolation of the legend about the census of the Israelites led to the emergence of superstitions when counting... domestic animals. If Christians could be counted by any means, then in the case of counting sheep, the shepherd resorted to protective rituals and incomprehensible, “wrong” words. The Anglo-Welsh counting turned out to be an ideal help for the English shepherds, earning the first grains of their popularity from this.
3. Wikipedia contains a whole article on the shepherd count in Britain with many tables.
Judging by the data given in the article, nowhere outside the Lakes District mentioned in Bolton’s monograph "aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp" was not used, which somewhat undermines the hypotheses stated above about the ancestral home of the Enik-Beniks. On the other hand, Wikipedia records evidence of even more liberal use of Celtic numerals in other areas of Britain: hovera, dovera, sethera, methera, petera, tethera, dora and laura clearly have no relation to any words of the Welsh language, being pure mnemonics.
We conclude: for the sake of ease of memorization and maintaining rhythm when counting, any awkward-sounding “authentic” word can be replaced by any arbitrarily fictitious one, as long as it sounds well on par with the others. This helps explain the presence in modern rhymes of both the quinter and the finter, and any other unidentifiable subject.
Since childhood, we remember this strange little rhyme: Eniki-beniki ate dumplings, Eniki-beniki ate dumplings, a drunken sailor came out on deck!
But we don’t even think about the meaning hidden behind these words. Meanwhile, counting rhymes are the oldest form of art and often carry secret and sacred knowledge. Linguists have been trying to unravel the message for many years. Here are three versions of the origin of the saying eniki-beniki.
One two three four five
One of the main ones is the version that the account is encrypted in eniki-beniki. Researcher Efim Shchup found that ene, bene, slave, kwinter, finter are close in sound to the numerals aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp. These numbers were used in the language of trade, which was invented by the Celts and the visiting Englishmen. However, it's not that simple...
Game of dice
According to linguist Orel, eniki-beniki came to us from the Middle Ages. They could have been invented by German knights, who, when playing dice, liked to say Einec beinec doppelte, which translated into Russian means the only bone doubled. Over time, this saying passed into the Polish language, and then moved further to the east.
There is another theory that sends us further into the past, to the mysterious Greek mythology. If you follow the version of mythological origin, rhymes like ene-bene, ricky-taki, bull-bul-bul, karaki-shmaki, eus-deus-kosmodeus, bam, grew out of a Greek poem telling the story of Aeneas. The hero of the Trojan War, who founded the city on the banks of the Tiber, was immortalized in this Latin poem:
Aeneas bene rem publicam facit,
In turbo urbem sene Tiberi jacit.
Deus, deus, crassus deus,
Bacchus!"
Child's world mysterious and difficult to understand. How did a Latin poem or a saying of German knights form the basis of children's rhymes? How do they cross country borders? For now these are unanswered questions. All three versions seem quite tempting, but we still don’t know the final answer. What if there is something else hidden behind the nursery rhyme?
Introduction
The children's rhyme "eniki beniks ate dumplings" is referred to in many studies as a counting system.
From the Anglo-Welsh account
“Apparently, “ene, bene, slave, quinter, fint[er]” goes back to “aina, peina, para, peddera, pimp” of the so-called Anglo-Welsh score (in the original - “Anglo-Cymric Score”, then there is an “Anglo-Kimri twenty”)"
From the Latin account
“Most likely, the counting rhymes go back to one of the many types of hunting draws, sometimes associated with fortune telling (even - odd, “lucky - unlucky”), as well as with magic that was supposed to bring good luck in the hunt. Such draws included a recount of participants, sometimes with the distribution of roles or functions in a joint hunt. Counting words (names of numbers) were taboo among many peoples, which could be associated with the belief in lucky and unlucky numbers, as well as with the mystery of numbers in general. Taboo counting words were deliberately distorted or replaced with meaningless consonances, sometimes borrowed numerals, sometimes completely abstruse gobbledygook. Contamination* of different words and parts of words often occurred, so the counting basis of such texts can only be seen by etymological analysis. For example, the beginning of the counting rhymes Eniki, beniki, res (known among all Eastern Slavs) contains modified Latin numerals unus, bini, tris (meaning “one”, “two”, “three” respectively)"
From a Yiddish account
“But here people say that eniki-beniki is exclusively from alef-bet (alef with the Russian suffix, so popular in Yiddish, -nik will be read as enik), especially with dumplings, which are associated with the Yiddish song “Varnickes”. But this is still fantasy."
From a German account
“The history of the origin of “eni-beni” or “eniki-beniki” (who ate dumplings in the famous poem) is generally mysterious. Back in the late 1970s, linguist V.E. Orel pointed out the similarity of “eniki-beniki” with the origins of German rhymes "Enige benige", which we inherited from the Middle Ages. German knights uttered similar texts when playing dice. According to the linguist, the origin goes back to the Middle High German phrase "Einec beinec doppelte", which meant "A single dice has doubled." From the German Landsknechts "eniki" -beniki" migrated to neighboring Poland, and later moved further to the east."
From Kyrgyz
"Eniki-beniki ate dumplings"
Eneke - mommy, mother (Kyrgyzstan) > njanka - nanny (slav.) (skip n)
Bee - mare (Kyrgyzstan) > bee > kobila - mare (glorious) (omission k, replacement l/e)
Eli from el - people (Kyrgyzstan) > el > lud - people (Slavic) (inv. el, pass d)
Bar (Turkish var) - there is, there is (Kyrgyzstan) > bar > var - var, cook (Slavic), cook in order to “eat”, otherwise, verb. “there is, there is” has two meanings: existence and eating, eating (for existence); compare I am (Old Slav.) - I am (I eat); I am - I am (English) > ja em I eat (glory)
"Eniki-beniki ate dumplings - eneke bee eneke eli var eneke - mother and mare-mother of the people is mother. Eniki-beniki is a collective image of the Woman-Mother and the Mare-Mother, the ancient goddess of the Polovtsy-Tengrians."
There are several variants of the phraseological unit “eniki beniks ate dumplings”:
Option 1:
"Eniki, beniks ate dumplings,
Eniki, beniks ate dumplings,
Eniki, beniki, hop!
Green syrup came out.
Eni, beni, ricky, taki,
Turba, urba, synthbrucks,
Eus, beus, krasnobeus, Bang!"
Option 2:
"Eni, beni, ricky, after all,
Turba, urba, synthbrucks,
Eus, beus, krasnobeus,
Bam!
Eni, beni, ricky, faki,
Turba, urba, eki, faki,
Eus, beus, cosmobeus,
Bam!
Eni, beni, ricky, paki,
Glug-glug-glug, scribbles, shmaki,
Eus, beus, cosmobeus,
Bang!"
Eni, beni, ricky, faki,
Til, glug-glug, koriki, shvaki,
Deus, deus, cosmodeus
Bang!"
Option 3:
(known from my golden childhood)
"Eniki beniks ate dumplings,
eniki beniki kletz,
What is a dumpling? Of course, “kletski” is a kind of German version of Ukrainian dumplings and Russian dumplings. Dumplings are pieces of dough cooked in boiling broth and milk. So, they ate either dumplings or dumplings. Perhaps the mystery is what they ate?
There is an interesting version of the word “beniki” - benka according to V. Dahl - a fork, that is, dumplings were eaten with a fork.
““Eniki-beniki ate dumplings”...
Who are Eniki?
Who are the beniks?
I asked about it
But no one gave an answer.
I dug through little by little
Dictionaries-piggy banks
And I found that the word “benki”
It's simple - forks.
Benki, or beniki,
The saying to them is eniki!
But a spoon can't
Eat okroshka yourself!
And bowls can't
Eat a bunch of radishes!..
Why beniki
What if they eat dumplings?
Because the word is
Outdated, no matter how sorry it is,
And one day from the buffet
Moved to the counting room.
And the counting is like this -
It's a word game
So, even beniki
They can eat dumplings!"
"BENECHKA? m. yarosl. fork. Benki m. m. fire. slingshots, forks, pitchforks, for feeding sheaves when laying stacks and when threshing." [SD]
And the word “eniki” is rather a distorted word “different”, “other”, “otherwise” (glory)
Then the counting table looks like this.
"Otherwise, the little ones ate dumplings,
Otherwise, benkami - dumplings,
"Otherwise, they ate dumplings with forks,
Otherwise, with forks - dumplings,
[A certain] sailor came out on deck" or
"Some ate dumplings with forks,
Other forks - dumplings,
[A certain] sailor came out on deck."
A comment:
The word "otherwise" is often used in ancient texts as an adversative conjunction in the function of enumeration. The last line of the counting rhyme is intended to rhyme.
The use of counting in the counting rhyme “eniki beniks ate vareniki” would be reliable if there were only the phrase “eniki beniks”, but it has the continuation “...ate vareniki”, which does not fall into the counting system, both English-Wallish and Yiddish, Latin, German, etc. Therefore, the version with “forks” is the most reliable. True, N.V. Gogol in the work “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” Pot-bellied Patsyuk ate dumplings without a fork, but this is another topic for research.
Rice. 1. Patsyuk from the film “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”
It’s interesting that in V. Dahl’s dictionary “dumpling” is not only a lump of dough, but also a kind of children’s game, like a counting rhyme before “catching someone.”
"Dumpling, kolobok, a lump of unleavened dough, sometimes small, in a stew. | Dumpling is a plural children's game: they spit through their fingers; and whoever spits his finger is a dumpling, and catch the others. Dumpling, dumpling, related to dumplings. Kletschny ", Kaluga. thick, like dough or thickly kneaded clay. Dumpling, lumpy or badly mixed. Dumpling, throwing lumps of clay or mud at the wall; -sya, throwing mud at each other." [SD]
It is quite possible that the enumeration in the counting rhyme went up to the name “dumpling”. Here the enumeration seems to put the participants in the game to sleep and suddenly the host suddenly exclaims “Dumpling!” and points his finger at the driver. For example:
"Some ate dumplings with forks,
Others with forks...dumpling!"
It is possible that “dumpling” is a “dirty lump”, “dirty one”, “pig”. Translated from Ukrainian, Patsyuk is a rat, a pig from the exclamation “Patz!”, calling a pig or “Bam!” as in option No. 1, 2.
It should be understood that children's counting rhymes are intended for choosing a game driver such as "tick" or "burner", "hide and hide" and are the threshold of this game. Therefore, in the counting game, it is not the score that is important, but some entertaining plot with a listing of objects, which can end with any player. For example:
"On the golden porch sat: the king, the prince, the king, the prince...".
“The month has emerged from the fog...”, etc.
Abbreviations
SPI - A Word about Igor's Campaign
PVL – Tale of Bygone Years
SD – dictionary of V. I. Dahl
SF - Vasmer's dictionary
SIS - dictionary of foreign words
TSE – Dictionary Efremova
TSOSH - explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov, Shvedov
CRS – dictionary of Russian synonyms
BTSU - Ushakov’s large explanatory dictionary
SSIS - combined dictionary of foreign words
MAK - small academic dictionary of the Russian language
VP – Wikipedia
EBE - Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia
1. etymology of “eniki beniks ate dumplings”, 2. etymology of “eniki beniks ate dumplings”, http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/troizkaya2.htm
3. eniki with dumplings, http://www.gramota.ru/forum/redaktor/22931/
4. eniki with dumplings, http://www.podrobnosti.ua/society/2004/07/06/131665.html
5. Eniki beniks ate dumplings, V. Timoshov, review of the article by L. Khristenko “The Toad Presses”
6. Eniki beniks ate dumplings...Tarabukin, http://wikilivres.ru/-..._()
7. V. N. Timofeev, article “Method of searching for Slavic roots in foreign words”, http://www.tezan.ru/metod.htm