Mittwoch, 8. Juli 2009

More proverbs

Dear readers from overseas and elsewhere, here are more typical Austrian proverbs.

"Vü wissn, vü Kopfweh"
german: "viel Wissen, starke Kopfschmerzen"
englisch: "much knowing, much headache"

Now I want to introduce something very special and typical for what Austrians would call "philosophy". On slices of wood (machine cut angular from a tree trunk), some "philosophs" burn in their "highly reflected" aphorisms. Here are four examples with first transcription, second in german (they are mostly in Austrian dialect) and third in englisch. Stand by:
original: "Milch und Honig / sind gut für den Hals / Doch feiert sich´s besser / mit Hopfen und Malz"
german: identical
english: "Milk and honey / both are good for the throat / but celebrations are better / with hops and malt [beer]"
original "Bleib munter und lustig / und gern auf der Welt / hab´ Sonne im Herzen / und ausreichend Geld"
german: identical
english: "Stay lusty and frolic / and (stay) gladly on earth / have sun in your heart / and sufficent money"

original: "Glück und Freude soll schon sein / und dazu ein Gläschen Wein / Mit Humor und frohen Mut / geht auch weiter alles gut"
german: identical
english: "Luck and happiness should be here to stay / and for that purpose a glas* of wine / with humor and a good cheer / everything will continue to be fine"

* as very common in Austria, they use a belittlement form of the word "glas", so "Gläschen", which means of course in practice a gallon of wine or even more.
original: "Ich bin sehr genügsam / und hab´ a´ glei´ g´nua / 3~4 Vierterl Wein / und a´ Stelzen dazu´a"
german: "Ich bin sehr genügsam / und bin auch gleich satt / nur 3 - 4 Viertelliter Wein / und ein Eisbein dazu"
english: "I´m very frugal / and in a moment full / just 3 to 4 glas** of wine / with a knuckle of pork"

** here you can see, which volume is meant, "Viertel" is 0.25 litre of wine

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