Background
I met a boy, about five years old, from a Persian family, and wanted to teach him some familiar (to him) songs on the piano. However, the children's songs familiar to me were not familiar to him, and between language barriers, unsuccessful searches of Google and YouTube, and an inquiry with a local Persian association, I never found out what songs he might have encountered at home.
Question
I'd like to know children's (ages birth-4) songs that could be considered reasonably canonical in various cultures around the world. I'm particularly interested in traditional songs parents or other close family members sing to their children.
A bit more detail
Children's songs can be into several loose, often overlapping categories (with examples from my native "canon"):
- Lullabies ("Rock-a-bye Baby")
- Nursery Rhymes ("Mary Had a Little Lamb") (or my favorite variation).
- Sing-a-longs ("Old MacDonald Had a Farm")
- Stories ("The Itsy Bitsy Spider")
and I would add
- Teaching songs ("The ABC Song")
- Religion-based songs ("He's Got the Whole World in His Hands")
The kind of answer I have in mind might look like:
Culture/Language/Religion/Country/...
Song category 1
- Example 1 (with link if possible)
- Example 2 (with link if possible)
- etc.
Song category 2
- etc.