Pretty Liddle Butterfly
This comes from a collection of African-American folk rhymes collected nearly a century ago. It's in a dialect.
Pretty Liddle Butterfly
Pretty Little Butterfly
Nursery Rhyme
Nursery Rhyme
(Historical Black American English)
(English)
Pretty liddle butterfly, yaller as de gold,
My sweet liddle butterfly, you shō'* is mighty bold.
You can dance out in de sun, you can fly up high,
But you know I'se bound to git you, yet, my liddle butterfly.
Pretty little butterfly, yellow as gold,
My sweet little butterfly, you sure are mighty bold.
You can dance out in the sun, you can fly up high,
But you know I'm bound to get you, yet, my little butterfly.
Notes
*This means "sure" and is pronounced as "show".
Thanks and Acknowledgements
This rhyme can be found in Negro Folk Rhymes, Wise and Otherwise, with a Study by Thomas W. Talley of Fisk University (1922).
Standard English version by Lisa Yannucci.
Advertisement
