How to Sing the Opening of the “Circle of Life”
As a child, I sang it like “NAKHHHT-SILVANIAAAA!” You sang something even sillier. But now we are adults and can learn real words in the opening of The Circle of Life from Disney’s The Lion King . Then we will sound much cooler when we lift something in the air, for example, Simba. Here’s how to sing this song and what it means.
The first and the rest of the non-English lines were written in Zulu by the South African composer Lebeau M.
How to sing it
The first line is transcribed as ingonyama Nants, bakichi, baba. Sithi hu ‘ngonyama . Chorus – Ingonyama nengwe ‘namabala . But if you’re not already familiar with the Zulu pronunciation rules, it won’t do you much good.
In theofficial lyric video from the Broadway production of The Lion King, the written words areplayed in sync with the chant. It’s still tricky for a non-Zulu speaker, but timing will help you learn. If you need to clarify this in a little more detail, ask one of the film’s singers to teach you.
In thevideo below, Lion King singer Ron Kunene teaches children to sing each line piece by piece. It indicates several particularly important sounds, including the click sound of a specific q .
What does it mean
In the lyrics, as in most poetry, there are some nuances that are lost in the English language. The prosaic translation reads like this: “Here comes a lion, father, yes, this is a lion. The lion we are going to defeat, the lion, the lion and the leopard come to this open place. “
But, according to ScreenRant , the more appropriate translation is “Here comes the lion .”
There is a more general Zulu word for lion, but ingonyama means both lion and king. “The lion and the leopard” can also be interpreted as “the lion in the leopard’s spots” – like a regal cloak. In the above Broadway lyric video, the phrase translates to “The lion king wears its leopard spots.”
The signature on theall-Zulu version of The Circle of Life translates the beginning of the line as “Here is the king.” He defines the chorus as “admiration for something amazing.” This is all very grandiose – a call for the animals of the country to come and see the king who will win. Super messianic.
Now find a cat or small child to lift them over your head and sing.