In the late 1300s, under the supervision of John Wyclif, the Bible was translated into English. If you actually read Wyclif’s translation, however . . . you might not think it is English at all! Look, for instance, at his rendition of Romans 8:28:
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And we witen, that to men `that louen God, alle thingis worchen togidere in to good, to hem that aftir purpos ben clepid seyntis.
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At times, the Wyclif Bible looks more German than English, and that is because the two languages are closely related. Here in Vienna (or Wien, as they call it), the linguistic kinship is obvious: Freund means “friend,” Mutter means “mother,” and Bus means “bus.” A person who lives in Wien, predictably, is known as a Wiener.
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As we travel around Wien, however, the words can sound pretty strange. Keith has tried to resurrect his rusty German skills, and he can actually translate a few of the signs that we see – for the most part, though, we are just muddling through.
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And we witen, that to men `that louen God, alle thingis worchen togidere in to good, to hem that aftir purpos ben clepid seyntis.
m
At times, the Wyclif Bible looks more German than English, and that is because the two languages are closely related. Here in Vienna (or Wien, as they call it), the linguistic kinship is obvious: Freund means “friend,” Mutter means “mother,” and Bus means “bus.” A person who lives in Wien, predictably, is known as a Wiener.
m
As we travel around Wien, however, the words can sound pretty strange. Keith has tried to resurrect his rusty German skills, and he can actually translate a few of the signs that we see – for the most part, though, we are just muddling through.
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For instance:
• We bought some conditioning solution for formstabile sauerstoffdurchlässige contact lenses, but we don’t exactly know what that means.
• Some words (like Kirche) require a throat-clearing sound that we are unable to properly imitate. And . . .
• We are continually discovering new manifestations of fahrt.
• We bought some conditioning solution for formstabile sauerstoffdurchlässige contact lenses, but we don’t exactly know what that means.
• Some words (like Kirche) require a throat-clearing sound that we are unable to properly imitate. And . . .
• We are continually discovering new manifestations of fahrt.
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m Best of all, we are discovering the beauty of compound words. We use them in English, of course, but nobody does it better than German-speaking people! For example: in English we have “words,” we have “books,” and we even have “wordbooks.” We do not, however, have a match for Großwörtbucher, which basically means “bigwordbook.” These compounds can look imposing, but they make the language precise and direct, and they can be fun to decipher. Can any of you translate the words below?
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m We are having a little contest here in the Schloss, to see who can find the longest compound word. Keith recently discovered Fahrtreppenbenutzungshinweise (29 letters), and that is the current standard. We hope to show you the grand-prize winner, when the semester ends . . .
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