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Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:50 pm
by TallaFerroXIV
Catalan:
Question: Cap cap cap?
Answer: Cap cap cap.

Translation:
Any head fits?
No head fits.

Re:

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:17 pm
by Jashan
Skomakar'n wrote: I och för sig would be something like in and for oneself (sig has no exact translation; it's a reflexive third person version if me and thee; same as Spanish se in most contexts), and actually means something along the lines of that's true, and it's understood that one had to think about it first and then realised that was the case (... it's really hard to exactly translate it; care to give me a hand here, Richard?).
In English I'd go for the very concise point.

A: "I can't believe French people eat snails. That's disgusting."
B: "Dude, you eat calf fries."
A: "... point."

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:45 pm
by Astraios
Á aá.
His armpit smarts (from an irritated wound).

This is sort of old-fashioned Lakota, nowadays you'd be more likely to hear Á oyáya for the same thing, but that's just not as fun.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:26 pm
by Kvan
Astraios wrote:Á aá.
His armpit smarts (from an irritated wound).

This is sort of old-fashioned Lakota, nowadays you'd be more likely to hear Á oyáya for the same thing, but that's just not as fun.
Ha! It would certainly be the sound I'd make if I had an irritated wound on my arm pit.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:20 pm
by KHS
I found some interesting Finnish words at http://www.suomigo.net/wiki/Go.finSanaleikit:

12 consecutive vowel letters: riiuuyöaieoionta 'courting night intention rectification'
11 consecutive double letters: kookkaammuussyytteellään 'his/her/its accusation of being bigger (adessive)'
7 consecutive double letters (non-compound): kookkaammuuttaan 'his/her/its state of being bigger (partitive)'

Words that contain only one vowel but as many times as possible (no compounds):
kaakatattajatartaankaanhan, määrääjätärtäänkään, seppeleeseenne, suurustuvuus, syyhyyntyvyys, risiinillisimpiinikin

Words that consist of a repeated string (9 letters or more, no compounds):
jättäjättä, kinkinkin, köhänköhän, mättämättä, Nissanissa, pahanpahan, sahansahan, Siltasilta, sinkosinko, tapastapas, tavattavat, tullatulla, tutustutus, valtavalta

'_' can be replaced with any short vowel:
t_kin: takin, tekin, tikin, tokin, tukin, tykin, täkin, tökin
m_kin: makin, mekin, mikin, mokin, mukin, mykin, mäkin, mökin

Any or all of the last three letters of the word tule can be doubled:
tule, tuule, tulle, tuulle, tulee, tuulee, tullee, tuullee

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:56 pm
by Mr. Z
In Hebrew there is the famous sentence "אישה נעלה נעלה נעלה נעלה את הדלת בפני בעלה", "isha na'ala na'ala na'ala na'ala et hadelet bifney ba'ala", "A superior woman put on her shoe and locked the door from her husband".

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:06 am
by Qwynegold
KHS wrote:tule, tuule, tulle, tuulle, tulee, tuulee, tullee, tuullee
What is this "tulle"?

Lol, at this one:
•k_llin (Kalli (erisnimi), kelliä, killi, kolli, ..kulta, kyllin, källi, kölliä.)
It's about these words where you can change the first vowel into any vowel and it will still be a word. The first meaning of "kullin" that pops into anyone's head is cock-GEN, but instead they wrote "...kulta" because it can also be gold-PL.COM or something.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:57 am
by vec
Icelandic:
Árni á á á á á beit.

English:
Árni who lives at [the farm] River owns an ewe that's grazing.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:12 am
by Jipí
vecfaranti wrote:Árni á á á á á beit.
Árni who lives at [the farm] River owns an ewe that's grazing.
Shouldn't that be Árni á Á?

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:16 am
by vec
Guitarplayer wrote:
vecfaranti wrote:Árni á á á á á beit.
Árni who lives at [the farm] River owns an ewe that's grazing.
Shouldn't that be Árni á Á?
Yes. Sorry.
Árni á Á á á á beit.
Literally
Árni on River owns ewe on biting.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:32 pm
by MisterBernie
Qwynegold wrote:What is this "tulle"?
Quoth wiktionary, potential present connegative form of tulla

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:13 am
by Qwynegold
MisterBernie wrote:
Qwynegold wrote:What is this "tulle"?
Quoth wiktionary, potential present connegative form of tulla
Shouldn't that be tullee? Oh well, whatever.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:33 pm
by linguoboy
I asked a Thuringian coworker if she knew a good German equivalent to "To each his own" and she came out with "Jeder nach seinem chacun," an unholy blend of "Jeder nach seinem Geschmack" and the expression this is calqued from, "Chacun à son gout".

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 5:05 pm
by Jipí
I only know "Jedem das Seine." Except you gotta be extremely careful using that around the politically hypercorrect, because the Nazis (ab)used it on the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp, so the phrase is forever tainted and may never be used again... :roll:

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 3:40 am
by Nortaneous
The word (well, phrase) for 'to know a language' in Kalam is mnm nŋ.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 5:10 am
by chris_notts
Nortaneous wrote:The word (well, phrase) for 'to know a language' in Kalam is mnm nŋ.
But Kalam does have phonetic vowels in those words. It's only written that way because it has [ɨ] (IIRC) everywhere and therefore most people regard them as epenthetic and don't write them.

THe really interesting thing about Kalam is that it has crazy levels of verb serialisation. A majority of clauses contain serial verb constructions (i.e. more than 50%) and they're used to express concepts that typically are covered by a single verb in most other languages. This is closely linked to the fact that verbs are a closed class in Kalam - it has a relatively small number of them with very general semantics.

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:21 pm
by Skomakar'n
vecfaranti wrote:Icelandic:
Árni á á á á á beit.

English:
Árni who lives at [the farm] River owns an ewe that's grazing.
Good, ol' á. We should be able to have even more fun with it!

Á ái á Á á á á á Á?
Does grandfather of Á have a ewe on a river in Á?

Perhaps?

–––

One of the best set of words for this kind of stuff in Swedish has to be "l[ä/e]t(t)".

Lät lätt lett lätt lett lätt lätt läte?
Did a light Latvian easily lead a slightly simple sound?

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 7:49 pm
by Wattmann
Skomakar'n wrote:
vecfaranti wrote:Icelandic:
Árni á á á á á beit.

English:
Árni who lives at [the farm] River owns an ewe that's grazing.
Good, ol' á. We should be able to have even more fun with it!

Á ái á Á á á á á Á?
Does grandfather of Á have a ewe on a river in Á?

Perhaps?
Or,
Á, á, á, Á! Á ái á Ár á á á á Ásár?
Ow, ow, ow, River (person)! Does grandfather of Ár (year) have an ewe on a river in Ásár (wooden beam year) ?

(I can barely follow it - but somewhat can!!!)

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:41 am
by JanAson
there is a pretty famous example sentence in south-east dialect of Korean: '가가 가가(gaga gaga)?', which means "ah! was that the person?".
and 'ga ga ga ga ga' can be interpreted by numerous different ways. for example, it can mean either 'does that person belong to Ga family?', 'take it and go away!', 'as you go, take it there' or 'the person of Ga family shall go there'... etc..

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:34 pm
by Nortaneous
Old Genoese: A éia e âe? Does it have wings?

from here

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 8:42 am
by Qwynegold
JanAson wrote:there is a pretty famous example sentence in south-east dialect of Korean: '가가 가가(gaga gaga)?', which means "ah! was that the person?".
and 'ga ga ga ga ga' can be interpreted by numerous different ways. for example, it can mean either 'does that person belong to Ga family?', 'take it and go away!', 'as you go, take it there' or 'the person of Ga family shall go there'... etc..
Hmm... could you throw Lady Gaga in there and make something out of it? ;)

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:50 am
by Thry
Portuguese:

o u é ao o e o i é ao e
/u u E aw o i u i E aw e/
[u.'wu.'E.o.'o.ju.'i.'E.o.'e]
"<o> is to <u> and <e> is to <i>"

once came up in Portuguese class discussing vowel reduction.

Also in the Portugal dialect you could possibly get /uuuu/:

continuo "I go on" /ko~.ti.nuu/ [ko~.ti.nuw]
continuo-o "I go on with it" /ko~.ti.nuuu/ [ko~.ti.'nu.uw]
continuo o u "I go on with the <u>" /ko~.ti.nuu u u/ [ko~.ti.'nuw._u.'wu]

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:20 pm
by Vuvuzela
James while John had had had had had had had had had a bigger influence on the teacher.
With the correct punctuation/prosody becomes an actual sentence in English. Who knows this one?

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 4:35 am
by Herr Dunkel
Me! I know it!
What about:

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo?

Re: Weird phrases from real languages

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:55 am
by Shm Jay
Qwynegold wrote:Hmm... could you throw Lady Gaga in there and make something out of it? ;)
가가 가가 가가 = Was that the Gaga person?
가가 가가 가가 가가 = Was that the gaga Gaga person? [The English word "gaga" is used here.]