what is meant by 'come by are' in the school hymn?

Question

That may not be the title of the hymn neither do I think that is the correct spelling, but you get the general gist of what song I am on about.

Answer 1

It's KUMBAYAH, see this Wikipedia article.
It was supposed to have originally been called "Come By Here"

Answer 2

If you look in a good songbook you'll find the word helpfully translated as 'come by here'. Kumbaya apparently originated with the Gullah, an African-American people living on the Sea Islands and adjacent coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. Having lived in isolation for hundreds of years, the Gullah speak a dialect that most native speakers of English find unintelligible on first hearing but that turns out to be heavily accented English with other stuff mixed in. The dialect appears in Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus" stories, to give you an idea what it sounds like. In the 1940s the pioneering linguist Lorenzo Turner showed that the Gullah language was actually a creole consisting of English plus a lot of words and constructions from the languages of west Africa, the Gullahs' homeland. Although long scorned as an ignorant caricature of English, Gullah is actually a language of considerable charm. And of course there's Kumbayah - according to Thomas Miller, the song we know began as a Gullah spiritual. Some recordings of it were made in the 1920s, but no doubt it goes back earlier. Published versions began appearing in the 1930s. It's believed an American missionary couple taught the song to the locals in Angola, where its origins were forgotten. The song was then rediscovered in Angola and brought back here in time for the folksinging revival of the 50s and 60s. People might have thought the Gullahs talked funny, but we owe them a vote of thanks. Can you imagine sitting around the campfire singing, "Oh, Lord, come by here"?

Answer 3

"Come by here". I have hated that hymn since I first had to sing it at school when I was about 5.

Answer 4

i'd go with uknative............................ten points for sure