--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "nikolai_sandbeck"
<nikolai_sandbeck@...> wrote:

>
> I don't understand this, and i need it to create my song, can anybody
> translate it to english for me? thanks ^^

Hi, Nikolai, welcome to the group! Here are the lyrics of the English
original [
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thelionkingreturntopriderock/mylullaby.htm
]. And I guess you've probably heard whole thing sung in Icelandic [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_yWmmwv4MM ]. Here's a link I find
very useful, the Icelandic Online Dictionary, in case you didn't
already know about that [
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/IcelOnline/Search.TEId.html ].

There's a Yahoo Group "LearningIcelandic" which has regular
contributions from a few speakers of the modern language [
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LearningIcelandic/?yguid=197638091 ].

A couple of grammar points. (I'm not a native speaker of Icelandic, so
I hope this is all correct; let me know if you find out otherwise, as
I'm a learner myself.)

In Modern Icelandic, "can you help me?" can be expressed as "getið þið
hjálpað mér?" (in the plural), or "geturðu hjálpað mér?" (singular).
Notice that the verb which expresses what can or can't be done (in
this example, hjálpa) takes the neuter singular form of the past
participle, lýsingarháttur þátíðar.

With some Icelandic verbs, the direct object has to be in the dative
case rather than the more usual accusative. The verb "hjálpa" takes a
dative object; that's why "mér" is used instead of "mig".

I found just four examples of "getur nokkur hjálpað mér" on Google.
The more usual expression is "getur einhver hjálpað mér" (19 600 hits
on Google!).

In Modern Icelandic, the old dual pronouns have replaced the plural
ones, so it's "þið", rather than "þér".

In Old Icelandic/Norse, "geta" or "fá" could be used with a past
participle to express the idea of succeding/managing to do something,
accomplishing an action. As far as I know, the extension of this idiom
to express general ability, "I can do something", isn't found in the
older language. See the entry for "geta" in Cleasby/Vigfússon [
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/%7Ekurisuto/germanic/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_about.html#images%20
]. The older way of saying "can" was "má" (expressing the idea of
being able to do something), but I don't know whether this was used
when asking for help.

A couple of examples of requests for help in Old Norse texts from the
Orðabók Háskólans database [ http://www.lexis.hi.is/corpus/leit.pl ]:

ek bið þik við hjálpa feðr mínum ok mér
"I ask you to help my father and me"

en bið ek þik, guðs móðir, at þú hjálpir mér
"but I ask you, Mother of God, to help me"