Na guat, Armin at a Ministry of Propaganda has brought to my attention the concept of Language Week (2005). Oh , and I see Christina is doing it too. Basically, all one has to do is blog in a language other than the one normally used on one’s site. As the German of the Day phrases here are usually deliberately mis-translated, if Swabian
proves too tricky I’ll just do German. The problem is really that there’s not really any standard Swabian - yes Langenscheidt do a Deutsch-Schwäbisch Wörterbuch, but look for example at this dialect map (© Mundartgesellschaft Württemberg e.V.) of how a single world like “potato” (Hochdeutsch “Kartoffel“) is spoken in Baden-W’berg - so any mistakes I’ll blame on having heard from a friend from say, Besigheim as opposed to Göppingen and vice versa. In fact, the only rule I’ll be applying is no poor jokes about the capital of Vietnam.
Phrase For Today: “Wir können alles außer…” - Ihr könnet nix. Net amol gscheides Werbung schreiba!
Song playing as this was published: Stan Getz “Round Midnight”
I love the dialect map! Up here near the city that speaks the best Hochdeutsch in the world (just ask any Hannoveraner) a Kartoffel is just a Kartoffel, thank goodness.
Hello! Its nice to see you back again. I thought you had stopped altogether but lovely to see you’ve not vanished. Am adding you to the links, so lovely to have one of my fav bloggers back.
Ben, mais ca a l’air tellement genial! Je vais le faire. En plus, je vais faire toutes mes commentaires en francais aussi. T’as vu le dictionnaire alternatif? J’ai apercu qu’ils n’ont pas eu aucun contribution pour swabian… Vas-y en occuper.
Easyjetsetter: Yes well, I might be able to understand your comments, just don’t expect me to reply in French. Comme tu sais, c’est possible, mais nach ungefähr vier oder fünf Wörter klingt alles etwas weniger französisch.
Oh and as for the alt-dictionary, they don’t even have a Badisch section. At least the Swabian section exists (even if it is empty).
Oh bugger (see, that was Norse*), now I’ve got to do this. Not got to, you understand, merely ought to and ought to be able to too. It’ll have to be French though as my German is a tad kaput, and the only Swahili I remember is stesheni ya polisi (and that the bank notes are signed by the Guvana of the Benki. Oh, and we stayed in a place called Mto wa Mbu - one means river, the other mosquitoes. I think you can figure out the rest).
So now all I need to do is decide if I can last a week of blogging without using any future tense (or conditional come to that. Or negative. Or some of the fiddlier bits of various past tenses).
* Please don’t point out that it’s from the Latin for Bulgarian.
[AF]”‘Talk about politics and your blog stats will collapse’, I was told recently.” And your problem is? As kabarettist Mathias Deutschman once put it so pertinently, “Wer alle erreichen will, muss auf den Sinn verzichten.” (roughly: “He who wants to reach everybody has to sacrifice all meaning.”)
The lack of interest in political details is what brings us down. The US electorate will mostly ignore the novices that GWB intends to nominate for ambassadorships (Mausi, watch out.), the Germans and the French will largely ignore the irrationality of coal and farming subsidies and the British, well, they will probbaly have the incurable belief that anything coming from Brussels is pure evil until the end of days.
Am I the only one who occasionally finds politics entertaining? Deutschlandradio recently aired the feisty comments of a Tory who greeted the prime minister with a heavily accented “bonjour” in the House of Commons and slyly added that he would support Mr Blair anytime against France. Mr Blair, not to be outdone, thanked his opponent with an equally heavily accented “merci beaucoup”. A lot of laughter followed this formidable infighting.
(The German Bundestag unfortunately lacks the biting comments and the close quarter combat athmosphere that makes the House of Commons so unique.)
And the old schlachtross (battlehorse) of the German Greens, the incredibly arrogant and vain Mr Fischer, landed more than a few good kicks during a recent firey speech. While I have never been an admirer of Fischer, he made Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle look like the not ready for prime time contenders that they are.
But really, so how did you like Garden State and the lovely Ms Portman?
Best regards,
JCS
Nichts zu sagen
Um, did anyone else catch this one?????
“Chirac mocks Britain for bad food”
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/04/france.britain.reut/index.html
Maybe Chirac read us blasting the French for poor hygiene and is retaliating in kind. But damn, the French do have good food though.
Hallöle,
do ben i jetzt a mol gschbannt, was Du die Woch no so älles schreibsch ..
Was mi no inderessiera dät: Wo wohnsch Du bei ons eigentlich?
Also, I fend des isch a Sach, mol uf schwäbisch zom Schreiba … s Problem isch bloß, daß mr älles irgendwie schreiba ka, ond mr bei manche Sache gar et so gnau woiß, wia mrs no ausschwätze muaß ond deswege manche gschriebene Wörtle kaum verstanda dud.
Adele,
Götz
Thanks for playing and for spreading the word!
Lundi
(Voilà le début de la Semaine des Langues chez srah blah blah. Je vois qu’il y a, déjà, beaucoup plus de participants que la dernière fois et je vous remercie! Parmi ces participants: Anyhoo, Armin, christina, Elemma…
Gotz: No, I’m not doing Swabian for the comments. Sorry. Obwohl ich mittlerweile in Stuttgart wohne, Deutsch habe ich in Tübingen, allerdings von eine Nordhessin gelernt.
srah: You’re welcome
JCS: Garden State - I thouroughly enjoyed it, although as you might expect, my judgement might have been clouded by a certain, delectable female…
Being serious, it’s definetly a “see again” movie, to try and notice the finer points that one learns about earlier on…
Look at all you clever people blogging in Deutsch. I feel quite put to shame!