once upon a time

those words...

"Once, there was a time..."

"In the beginning..."

They clearly say to the child's heart, "wake up, something magical is in the air".

Wikipedia's featured article today was fairy tale, a subject in which I am most interested. What is so intriguing about faerie stories is that they appear everywhere, many times virtually identical even across chasms of culture and time. In other cases, tales have the same themes but cultural peculiarities. Isn't that interesting? It's as if these stories or elements are written somewhere deep inside of all of us—somewhere deeper than our culture, somewhere deeper than our experiences, somewhere as deep as humanity itself.

This was interesting to at least one famous linguist, too. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about this (and much more) in his amazing essay on fairy stories .

Wiki's fairy tale entry referred to once upon a time, which has this interesting list of phrases in different languages that are used to open the way to tales. And now I have to wonder what the peculiar phrase to each language has to say about the people, their culture, and their understanding of time.

I have particular interest in some of them. Hebrew and Greek, for example, are the inheritors of the Biblical tongues. And it's very interesting the difference in how they view time. In Spain I have a second family. German is always important because most of the fairy tales came to me by the brothers Grimm. And I'm always interested in what the French are up to. And I get melancholy just thinking about the way the Eastern Europeans and Western Asians open their tales with, "there was, there was not, there was...", as if to say, "this is a story that is too good to be true".

My culture has largely lost fairy stories, largely because we've lost Story itself. We've given them up for reality shows and soap operas and situational comedies and propositional truth. But there are some of us...

Anyway, here's Wikipedia's list:

• Afrikaans: Eendag, lank gelede... 'Someday, a long time ago...'
• Algerian Arabic: Hajitek ma jitek 'I've told you what's coming'
• Classical Arabic: kân yâ mâ kân fî qadîmi zzamân wsalifî al`aSri wal'awân...(كان يامكان،في قديم الزمان، وسالف العصر والأوان) 'There was, oh what there was (or there wasn't) in the oldest of days and ages and times...'
• Azeri: Biri var idi, biri yox idi... 'There was, (and) there was not...'
• Bulgarian: Имало едно време... 'There was, once upon a time...'
• Catalan: Hi havia/això era una vegada 'There was a time...'Temps era temps... 'Time was time...'
• Croatian: Jednom davno... 'Once, a long time ago...' Common ending: ... i živjeli su sretno do kraja života '...and they lived happily till the end of (their) life
• Czech: Bylo nebylo,... 'There was, there was not...'
• Ekoti (Mozambique, Bantu): Rakú z'éepo waarí-vó oswááipu nwúlw'eéne saána 'Once upon a time, there was a truly great friendship...'.
• Danish: Der var engang... or Engang for længe siden... 'There was, once...' or 'Once a long time ago...', respectively.
• Dutch: Er was eens... 'Once there was...' Common ending ... en ze leefden nog lang en gelukkig '... and they lived a long and happy life'.
• Finnish: Olipa kerran... 'Once there was...'
• French: Il était une fois 'There was, once... ' Common ending: ... et ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants ' ... and they married, and had lots of children'
• Galactic Basic: 'A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...'
• German: Es war einmal... 'Once there was...' Common ending: und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute 'and if they have not died, they are still alive today'
• Georgian: "Iko da ara iko ra, iko..." 'There was, and there was not, there was...'
• Goemai (Nigeria, West Chadic): Tamtis noe lat/ dok ba muaan yi wa 'My tale has finished, (it) has returned to go (and) come home.'
• Greek: Μια φορά κι έναν καιρό... 'Once, in another time...' Common ending: Κι έζησαν αυτοί καλά κι εμείς καλύτερα 'And they lived well, and we [lived] better'
• Hebrew: Hayo hayah pa'am... (היו היה פעם) 'Once there was a time...'
• Hindi किसी ज़माने में ('In one era, ...') or बहुत पुरानी बात है ('It's an old story, ...')
• Hungarian: Egyszer volt, hol nem volt, volt egyszer egy... 'Once there was, where there wasn't, there was a...'
• Indonesian: Pada suatu hari... 'One day...'
• Iraqw(Tanzania, Kenya, Cushitic) tokaro-yâ 'once upon a time (standard opening phrase); aa fák 'it is finished' (common end to a story).
  • In oral literature, phrases like "I remember something that our father told me and that is this:" are common (Iraqw: Kar aníng te-'ée' to-ká a inhláw ar aakó doo-rén ni alki'-a i tí). Endings are often like "Such is the story that our father told us" (Iraqw: a-n ti'itá-r akóo doo-rén na alki'íit).
• Irish: Fadó, fadó, fadó a bhí an (agus bhí rí in nGaillimh) 'A long, long, long time ago it was (and there was a king in Galway.)
• Italian: C'era una volta... 'There was a time...' Common ending: ...e vissero felici e contenti '...and they lived happily and merrily'
• Japanese: Mukashi mukashi (昔昔, 昔々, むかしむかし). 'A long time ago...'
• Korean: Yet-nal Yet-jeok-e... (옛날옛적에...). 'Once upon a time...'
• Latvian: Reiz sen senos laikos... 'Once long ago in times long gone'
• Malayalam: Pandu Oridathu... 'Long ago...'
• Mandarin (Chinese): 很久，很久以前 'Long, long time ago...' or "从前" 'once upon a time'
• Maragoli Kenyan language related to other Luhya languages. Mmadikhu ga khaare (in olden days).
• Norwegian: Det var en gang... 'There was, once...' Common endings: og så levde de lykkelig alle sine dager 'and then they lived happily all their days', og er de ikke døde, så lever de ennå 'and if they are not dead, then they're still living'
• Pashto: "داسي کار وو چي" (Daasi kaar wo che) or "داسي چل وو چي" (Daasi chal wo che). 'There was this work that...'
• Polish: Dawno, dawno temu... 'Long, long time ago...'
• Portuguese: Era uma vez... 'There was, once...'
• Romanian: A fost odata, ca niciodata... 'There once was...'
• Russian: Жил был (zhil bwil) "There lived and was..." ['жила была (Zhila bwila)' if a female character is introduced in the beginning; 'жили были (zhili bwili)' if multiple characters]
• Sanskrit Pūrākāle (पुराकाले) 'In the ancient time...', Kadājit (कदाचित्) 'Once upon a time'/'At any time'
• Spanish: Érase/Había una vez... 'There was, once...' Traditional ending: Y vivieron felices y comieron perdices 'and they lived happily and ate partridges' (the sentence rhymes in Spanish)
• Swahili East African Kenya,Tanzania,Uganda,Somalia,Congo language rapidly expanding towards Western and Southern Africa. "Hapo zamani za kale..." (a long time ago).
• Swedish: Det var en gång... ("There was, once...") Common ending ... och så levde de lyckliga i alla sina dagar. ("... and then they lived happily in all their days")
• Tagalog: Noong unang panahon... 'At the first time (a long time ago)...'
• Thai: กาลครั้งหนึ่งนานมาแล้ว 'Once upon a time (long ago)...'
• Turkish: Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde... 'Once there was, once there wasn't. In the old times, in a stack of hay...'
• Vietnamese: Ngày xửa ngày xưa... 'A long, long time ago...'
• Welsh: Amser maith yn ôl... 'A long time ago...'