The foreign idioms game

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

22 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Our local dialect has indeed more similarities with Kölsch

You must be close to Chickenpants Castle!

[Sid Nagy]

 Yes indeed, that castle is in a neighboring town.

Chickenpants castle. 😂😂

Edited July 17, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Brave Sir Robin on his trusty steed Coconut, at Chickenpants Castle

[Sid Nagy]

50 minutes ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

Haha, we used to drive to the Ikea in Heerlen pre-pandemic, because it's a bit closer to me than the one in Köln!  So chances are high I drove by your town!

I wonder, I don't really know the Aachener dialect, except for "Och herm", lol. But yeah, they're poluar here as well, of course, but I don't really understand them, heh.

funfact: I speak the local dialect so little, that my mother and my grandma could effectively talk to each other without me understanding them! My mother once got me totally confused when she told me to get her the Öljelche - which apparently means little onions.

Ach (och) herm is used in our dialect too.

When I take the closest border crossing, I end up in the Selfkant. That part that was Dutch for a few decades after WWOII.
One of the first pandemic hot spots in Germany.

Pre pandemic I used to fill up my car there (gas is cheaper in Germany) and did a lot of everyday shopping there, depending on which side of the border the product is cheaper.
 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Sid Nagy]

"Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof." (German) 
"I only understand train station."
In Dutch: "Ik kan er geen chocolade van maken".
"I can't make chocolate from that"

In English idiom: It's all Greek to me.

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Rolig Loon]

This is fascinating.  On one side of my family, I am descended from families that went to the Dutch Antilles in the late 1700s and the early part of the 19th Century and eventually migrated north into the United States.  My uncle, long deceased, was the family genealogist in his generation.  He spent many vacations in the Antilles and on trips to the archives in the Hague, copying documents which were, of course, in old Dutch.  Somewhat a linguist, he taught himself enough Dutch to translate all but the hardest parts. He always said that he was helped more by cognates from German than by those from English, although he was fluent in both languages.  

[Chroma Starlight]

"Iss dich net voll." (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Don't eat yourself full." (US/International English)
"We must live in balance with ourselves and the world."

"Die Wutz" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Pig (when someone eats a lot.)" (US/International English)
"To eat more than your fill, in gross imbalance with life"

"Mach's Licht aus." (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Outen the lights." or "Turn off the lights." (US/International English)
"Do not be wasteful of energy, for we are to be good stewards of this Earth." 

"Es wunnert mich." (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"It makes me wonder." (US/International English)
"There's something mysterious here."

"Schusslich" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Clumsy" (US/International English)
"It is difficult to watch this unfold, but if I must, I think this is a travesty against grace itself"

"Die Kutz" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"vomit." (US/International English)
"This is so revulsive to my sensibilities that it is palpable."

"Ya, Well."  (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Yes, well, .." (US/International English)
"Regardless of what you have said, there exists this overriding concern which you have failed to take into account."

"Alle" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"All Gone" (US/International English)
"You're too late for your share, or all conservation efforts have failed."

"Genau wie" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"Exactly right" (US/International English)
"That's exactly how things are."

Edited July 17, 2021 by Chroma Starlight

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

"Alle" (Pennsylvania Dutch)
"All Gone" (US/International English)
"You're too late for your share, or all conservation efforts have failed."

Yes.

"The cake is all."  (Pennsylvania "Dutch")

"The cake is all gone"  (US standard English)

My grandmother used phrases like that, transplanted from German into local dialect, all the time.

[Fritigern Gothly]

5 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

This is fascinating.  On one side of my family, I am descended from families that went to the Dutch Antilles in the late 1700s and the early part of the 19th Century and eventually migrated north into the United States.  My uncle, long deceased, was the family genealogist in his generation.  He spent many vacations in the Antilles and on trips to the archives in the Hague, copying documents which were, of course, in old Dutch.  Somewhat a linguist, he taught himself enough Dutch to translate all but the hardest parts. He always said that he was helped more by cognates from German than by those from English, although he was fluent in both languages.  

Yes. The similarities between English, German and Dutch started to fade during what is known as the Great Vowel Shift which took place in England roughly between 1400 and 1700. During that time English morphed into Middle English and eventually Modern English. It was called the Great Vowel Shift because suddenly vowels started to be pronounced differently and in some cases written differently. Characters were dropped from the alphabet (like þ, or ð and a few more) and replaced with other characters.
While the Old English and the Old Dutch/Germans could initially understand each other (perhaps with a little bit of effort), at the end of this vowel shift, English was transformed into a language considerably different from Old English and with that, different from German and Dutch and even grammar had changed.
Some cognate words remained, but overall most words were replaced and/or transformed into words that read and sound different to modern English speakers.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Fritigern Gothly

[Rolig Loon]

To a degree, the shift slowed a little as modern dictionaries were published and spelling became standardized in each of our languages.  New words continue to appear, of course, and some older ones fall out of use or change meaning or spelling.  People with economic means have been able to move around for the past century and more too, and global communication has become much easier for everyone than it once was. These have led to some mixing of dialectical boundaries and the introduction of borrowed words and ways of speaking. 

I hear younger people around me here in the northern Midwest of the US using some words and accents that I associate with other parts of the country, yet people on the radio and TV sound pretty much the same everywhere. There are still regional dialects and accents, but "standard" speech is more homogenized than it was once. I hear much more pronounced local accents among the elderly than among the young, too, so regionalisms that were common here a half century ago are regarded as more "quaint" or "old-fashioned" today.  I remember commenting on the same thing almost 50 years ago when I was visiting friends in Sweden.  Their parents (who were not yet elderly but probably in their early 60s) spoke Swedish in a way that sounded more heavy and deliberate than my friends did.  

[Rolig Loon]

If you've ever seen the movie, Fargo, you've had a taste of what people within about 400 miles of here can sound like.  The cadence and vowel sounds of speech have an undefinable Scandinavian sound, and there are phrases like "Ya, suure" and "Ya betcha" and "uffda" that are distinct to the region.

 

[examining]

kathe persi kai kalytera (greek)

each past year better than the current one

when memories are better than experiences

 

mazi me ta xera kaigontai kai ta xlora

along with the dry ones, the green ones also burn

when innocent people get punished because of other people's crimes

 

polles fores paei i stamna sto pigadi ma mia de gyrizei

many times the pitcher goes to the well but once it does not return

risky efforts might succeed for a while but not for ever

 

mpros gkremos kai pisso rema

front cliff and back stream

when both solutions are inaccessible and a third one must be invented

 

mnimossyna me xena kollyva

funeral with other people's memorial boiled wheat

performing necessary  personal  obligations at other people's expenses

 

hope to gather more soon...

Edited July 28, 2021 by examining

[examining]

1. Kalomeleta ki erxetai.

Think positively and you shall succeed. 

Think positively about future outcomes.

2. Pio poly psomi tros me to meli para me to xydi.

One can eat more bread with honey than with vinegar.

It is easier to succeed through calm and serenity than through anger and hate.

3. Ta sterna timoun ta prota.

The last days, years, moments of someone give credit to the earlier ones.

Someone's honor relies not only on his young age accomplishments but indeed every moment counts until he passes away.

 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Alle gekheid op een stokje, ...

All craziness on a stick, ...

All jokes aside, ...

 

De beste stuurlui staan aan wal.

The best steering lads stand on wall.

The best helmsmen stand ashore.

Criticizing someone else's job while watching from the sidelines.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Orwar]

   "Svärdet till lek, yxan till allvar".

   "The sword for playing games, the axe for doing business".

   Supposedly a Viking age idiom. Not sure of its actual origin though. But there are a fair few sources from the period which points out that the quality of swords were often poor, to the point that warriors occasionally had to step back to try straightening bent weapons between their knees, and that those who had swords often had to carry a secondary backup weapon, which would generally be an axe (and swords were a secondary weapon to begin with in battlefield situations, where spears were the primary weapons for pretty much everyone, and axes were the go-to secondary for most people).

   There were exceptions though, most famously the 'Ulfberht' swords produced in Frankonia (probably) in the 9th-11th centuries, which were made from crucible steel (also known as 'wootz steel', which was probably imported by Vikings along the Volga Route to the Caspian Sea). Unlike ye average European early medieval sword which were prone to get bent or snap right off, such swords would bend and flex right back - experimental archaeologists have produced ingots of crucible iron with the old methods, which were almost comparable to modern, industrially produced steel.