the "translate please" thread

[Taliesin]

Yeah, Display of Character is right: we call it "smegma" and I haven't seen it spelled "smeg" in English either...

Let me fill a great hole in your subcultural education then
The series Red Dwarf apparantly invented "smeg" as a universal dirty word
I thought it was the other way round. Either way, even in italian there's a resemblance. I shall remain puzzled still

 

[rahvin]

Let me fill a great hole in your subcultural education then
The series Red Dwarf apparantly invented "smeg" as a universal dirty word

On the one hand, I now feel I should watch that series.
On the other, they're Brits. They make up funny-sounding words every other hour.

 

[hyena]

i will not make dwarf jokes. and i will not publicly confess that i have always sort of associated smeagol with smegma.

 

[Delirious]

*semi-raises hand*
no results guaranteed, but i can ask a friend of mine who studied it for a short period.

 

[hyena]

Can anyone confirm that "Ursvamp" actually means Ancient mushroom?

 

[Delirious]

yes and no.

we call ancient forest "urskog" (with "skog" being "forest") and svamp does mean mushroom, so the meaning is obvious enough. you're not very likely to find the word in any non-finntroll context, though.

 

[hyena]

alright, thanks. yeah, i knew about ur being a prefix for "ancient", but i was puzzled by the mushroom part. are finntroll's lyrics meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or do they take themselves seriously?

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

Does anyone here speak Japanese? I have a question concerning finding the right e-mail-adress on a website with tons of nice Japanese letters. Translation pages did not help me in this case. I promise it´s just a very small task, still I´d need the info and cannot get it.
If someone is there, please raise your hand or send me a message

*raises hand*

PM if you still need help . And it's Japanese characters, note letters .

 

[Delirious]

are finntroll's lyrics meant to be tongue-in-cheek, or do they take themselves seriously?

i recall some interview where they seemed quite annoyed by being regarded as too much of a joke, but being serious... no. they can't. they just can't.

also, the post-katla lyrics i've seen are in quite poor swedish. if there's any intention whatsoever of being taken seriously involved, they ought to have someone with a better grasp of the language writing them.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

thank you, but the matter seems solved now

sounds darktranquill-ish

Hehehe .

i recall some interview where they seemed quite annoyed by being regarded as too much of a joke, but being serious... no. they can't. they just can't.

also, the post-katla lyrics i've seen are in quite poor swedish. if there's any intention whatsoever of being taken seriously involved, they ought to have someone with a better grasp of the language writing them.

Are those in Swedish? I'm not sure 'cause Finntroll has always (?) written in that weird Swedish-Finnish dialect (don't remember the name), but I'm certain it's not Swedish.

 

[Northern Lights]

No, trust the Swedish guy, it's most definitely Swedish. "Finlandssvenska" is not a language on its own, and it isn't written any differently. It's just that, a dialect. It's as if you would say Argentinians don't speak Spanish.

 

[Somber Soul]

No, trust the Swedish guy, it's most definitely Swedish. "Finlandssvenska" is not a language on its own, and it isn't written any differently. It's just that, a dialect. It's as if you would say Argentinians don't speak Spanish.

If you study Swedish at university in Vienna, then one course will be devoted to Finlandssvenska, since it's considered an important variety. I never got that far, though.

 

[Northern Lights]

I wouldn't dispute that it's an important variety - it has definitely developed differently than the Swedish spoken in Sweden. But my objection is to labelling it as "certainly not Swedish" - that implies that it has become a different language altogether, in the way of, say, Icelandic and Norwegian.

 

[Somber Soul]

I wouldn't dispute that it's an important variety - it has definitely developed differently than the Swedish spoken in Sweden. But my objection is to labelling it as "certainly not Swedish" - that implies that it has become a different language altogether, in the way of, say, Icelandic and Norwegian.

Yes, and this is how I understood it.

Isn't it interesting? At which point do you call two varieties different languages? Politics is certainly an important factor. Norwegian and Swedish are close enough to be considered dialects instead of separate languages. On the other hand, there is only one German, but certainly the German spoken in Switzerland is as far away from the variety in Austria or Germany as is Norwegian from Swedish. We don't even have to leave the country. It is true that people from Vienna have severe difficulties understanding someone from the West of the country, say Vorarlberg or Tyrolia.

 

[Matse]

Well the German in Switzerland is often called Switzerditsch (sp?) although even that is considered a German dialect and I can't understand it at all if it is spoken fast. I can understand Austrian dialects (at least those I have heard) pretty well though.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

No, trust the Swedish guy, it's most definitely Swedish. "Finlandssvenska" is not a language on its own, and it isn't written any differently. It's just that, a dialect. It's as if you would say Argentinians don't speak Spanish.

Well I haven't read the lyric so I was just guessing .

So after Katla left everything was written in Swedish? Interesting .

@ Matse: Haha yeah it is quite difficult to understand, my German is Intermediate-low, and I remember that when I went to Switzerland I was like " it's as different as people say!" You know, with stuff like: Wiennächt instead of Weinnacht :Smug: .

It's already been a year since I went to Europe, damn time sure flies by :zombie: .

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

Schwyzerdütsch (or "-tüütsch", sometimes)

Within Swiss German, there are so many dialects again, that often people from different regions have difficulties to understand each other, for example some from Zurich find it tricky to understand the Valaisian dialect.

Haha I imagine. Still, I went to Basel (what a place ) and it wasn't that different, I understood a lot actually .

 

[Siren]

Can the holders of the knowledge of all that is Latin help with this?

Mea Culpa, Ecce Signum, Corpus Vile, Coram Deo
Pactum Serva, Scala Caeli, Gloria Patri, Pax Et Bonum
Sine Cura, Vade Mecum, Casus Belli, Lusus Naturae
Dies Illa, Velut Luna, Dona Es Virtum

 

[Delirious]

So after Katla left everything was written in Swedish? Interesting .

after and before. or, well, there's some finnish on visor om slutet, but that's besides the point. the difference katla's departure made was that the quality dropped significantly. apparently, there's a beast in trollhammaren that rides among the shadows "like an black trees"... :Smug:

 

[Somber Soul]

Well the German in Switzerland is often called Switzerditsch (sp?) although even that is considered a German dialect and I can't understand it at all if it is spoken fast. I can understand Austrian dialects (at least those I have heard) pretty well though.

Have you been to Vorarlberg? You wouldn't understand them very well. At least people from the East can't. Their accent is much closer to Schweizerdeutsch than to anything else. No wonder, they both speak Allemanic accents.