Dec. 10th, 2006 09:06 pm
"RammSHTEEN!!!"
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muckefuckThe other night on the platform with Rammstein playing on my headphones, I began an on-the-fly translation of "Du Hast" into Alemmanic. ("Du! Du hasch! Du hasch mi!") However, I soon realised that the intended wordplay wouldn't come through.
See, there are two sources for /s/ in modern Standard German. One is Proto-Germanic *s. The other is Proto-Germanic /t/ by way of the so-called "Zweite Lautverschiebung" or High German Consonant Shift, which explains why, for instance, German essen corresponds to English eat. The two sounds weren't always the same, however. They were spelled differently in Old and Middle High German and Germanicists theorise that this reflected a difference in pronunciation. The zz from *t was probably made with the tip of the tongue against the teeth, a so-called apico-dental, whereas s represented a sound made with the blade of the tongue and/or with the tongue further back.
(It's interesting to note the parallels to the development of Western Romance languages, where /ts/ from the palatalisation of Vulgar Latin t and k was de-affricated in the early modern period to an apico-dental s. This fell together with inherited s in some varieties [e.g. French, Catalan, Portuguese, seseante Spanish] and remained distinct in other [primarily Castilian] varieties. Thus Castilian cazar [ka'θar] "hunt" from VL *captiare [cf. Latin captare "capture"] vs. casar [ka'sar] "marry" from VL casa "house".)
Part of the evidence for the variant pronunciations is the different behaviours of these s's when they come into contact with other consonants, like /r/. So, for instance, PGmc. *arsaz yields English arse (American English ass with sporadic loss of /r/ before /s/; cf. curse > cuss, burst > bust, etc.), but Standard German Arsch. This suggests that Old High German s was made further back in the mouth (closer to where [ʃ] is pronounced) than OHG zz.
In this respect, Alemmanic dialects go even further than Standard German, changing this s to sch (i.e. [ʃ]) before any consonant. So StG. Samstag "Saturday" corresponds to Alem. (Badisch) Samschdig. However, the change didn't happen with the dental sounds. So Alemmanic varieties distinguish isch (from MHG ist) "is" from isst (from MHG izzet) "[s/he] eats". In StG., the reflexes of both MHG words fall together as [ɪst] (although they are still distinguished in spelling). Now, since hassen originally had *t (cf. English hate), it ends up with [s] in Alemmanic vs. [ʃ] in hasch(t) (StG. hast) "[you] have". So Rammstein's punning on the two meanings of "Du has(s)t mich" doesn't translate into Alemmanic.
There may be another solution, however. Some colloquial varieties of German do have a verb haschen "to smoke hash", derived from the recent loanword Haschisch. If Badisch is one of them, then there still exists some possibility for wordplay in the translated lyrics. (The rest is left as an exercise for the student.)
See, there are two sources for /s/ in modern Standard German. One is Proto-Germanic *s. The other is Proto-Germanic /t/ by way of the so-called "Zweite Lautverschiebung" or High German Consonant Shift, which explains why, for instance, German essen corresponds to English eat. The two sounds weren't always the same, however. They were spelled differently in Old and Middle High German and Germanicists theorise that this reflected a difference in pronunciation. The zz from *t was probably made with the tip of the tongue against the teeth, a so-called apico-dental, whereas s represented a sound made with the blade of the tongue and/or with the tongue further back.
(It's interesting to note the parallels to the development of Western Romance languages, where /ts/ from the palatalisation of Vulgar Latin t and k was de-affricated in the early modern period to an apico-dental s. This fell together with inherited s in some varieties [e.g. French, Catalan, Portuguese, seseante Spanish] and remained distinct in other [primarily Castilian] varieties. Thus Castilian cazar [ka'θar] "hunt" from VL *captiare [cf. Latin captare "capture"] vs. casar [ka'sar] "marry" from VL casa "house".)
Part of the evidence for the variant pronunciations is the different behaviours of these s's when they come into contact with other consonants, like /r/. So, for instance, PGmc. *arsaz yields English arse (American English ass with sporadic loss of /r/ before /s/; cf. curse > cuss, burst > bust, etc.), but Standard German Arsch. This suggests that Old High German s was made further back in the mouth (closer to where [ʃ] is pronounced) than OHG zz.
In this respect, Alemmanic dialects go even further than Standard German, changing this s to sch (i.e. [ʃ]) before any consonant. So StG. Samstag "Saturday" corresponds to Alem. (Badisch) Samschdig. However, the change didn't happen with the dental sounds. So Alemmanic varieties distinguish isch (from MHG ist) "is" from isst (from MHG izzet) "[s/he] eats". In StG., the reflexes of both MHG words fall together as [ɪst] (although they are still distinguished in spelling). Now, since hassen originally had *t (cf. English hate), it ends up with [s] in Alemmanic vs. [ʃ] in hasch(t) (StG. hast) "[you] have". So Rammstein's punning on the two meanings of "Du has(s)t mich" doesn't translate into Alemmanic.
There may be another solution, however. Some colloquial varieties of German do have a verb haschen "to smoke hash", derived from the recent loanword Haschisch. If Badisch is one of them, then there still exists some possibility for wordplay in the translated lyrics. (The rest is left as an exercise for the student.)
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That was fascinating.
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gestern habe ich "Schweinebank" und "Sparschweinchen" verwechselt. Es war schön und peinlich auf einmal!
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I'm not sure whether the typical German-speaker would be more likely to intepret Schweinebank as a bank for the use of pigs or pig-farmers (cf. Schiffsbank, Bauerbank) or a bank for storing pigs (by analogy with Datenbank). I think the latter, but either way, hilarity ensues.
You think that's bad, Bengt,
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Is haschen transitive, though?
(There is another German verb haschen, though, but I'm not quite certain what it means -- something about hiding or catching, I think. Duden will probably know. See also Hasch mich, ich bin der Frühling.
Erhaschen is a bit more common, something like "obtain by grabbing quickly during the brief period something is available", also used in einen Blick erhaschen, to catch a glimpse of something.)
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But haschen doesn't have to be transitive for at least some wordplay to take place, since at least du hascht would be ambiguous.