Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 September 1

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Translation from Low German

Can anyone please help me translate a poem by Klaus Groth into English or into Standard German?

This one: [1]

I tried asking a couple of friends from other German regions, but they could only understand bits of it. --My another account (talk) 12:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any friends from the Netherlands you could ask? Dialects of Low German are also spoken there, so a speaker of one of them might find Groth's dialect more accessible. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 14:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rough translation:

Let me go, my mother's asleep!
Let me go, the watchman is calling!
Listen, how quiet and beautiful it sounds!
Go, and leave me nicely here.

Look how the church towers there so large.
By its walls the dead are asleep.
You too sleep well and think of me!
I will dream of you all night.

Mother's awake, she will sure hear us!
Enough now! Good-bye, good-bye!
Next night, when she'll be asleep,
I'll stay here until the watchman calls.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(I am from the wrong part of Germany to really comment, but) I am curious why you translate "dar slöppt de Dod" as "the dead are asleep". It does not look plural to me (but it makes a lot more sense than the "there sleeps Death" that I would have guessed). Is "de Dod" commonly used for "the Dead"? —Kusma (t·c) 14:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering about that too, and I'm not a speaker of the dialect either. There are plural verbal forms in -t in Low German, although according to conjugation tables on several websites I just checked, the plural form would be "slaapt", not "slöppt", so it does seem rather more like a singular form here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:48, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Last not least: the title "At the Door". --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another Slovenian question

I took this photograph of Slovene text in the Metelkova district of central Ljubljana, Slovenia. What does it say? JIP | Talk 19:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Policemen, inspectors, dealers, get the fuck out of Metelkova --217.140.96.140 (talk) 20:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. JIP | Talk 20:51, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder what the story is behind that banner. StuRat (talk) 03:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC) [reply]

WHAAOE: Metelkova is an alternative district, with history of squatting and occasional police raids in the past.No such user (talk) 18:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]