Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 April 12

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April 12

Let it be

Has the expression "let it be" been adopted by any foreign language? It strikes me as a rather unique form of expressing a concept and thus difficult to translate. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

"Fiat" and "Amen" are two well known examples, from Latin and Hebrew, respectively. In Polish, it would be "Niech będzie", and I expect that most languages have a way of conveying the concept. I don't understand what you think is so unique about it. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:37, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

In some English dialects, "let it be" means "leave it alone". Alansplodge (talk) 18:21, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Right, "fiat" and "amen" are not the only translations possible and I don't mean these. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

@Alansplodge: Not at all unique to English. The same is true for the exact literal translation in German, Danish and perhaps all other Germanic languages, as well. French has a similar construction with "laisser". Not cognate, but probably influenced by Germanic.

@OsmanRF34: It would help a lot if you explained what you mean. Your question is pretty vague. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:47, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The song "Let It Be", to this American, means "leave it alone", with the implied followup, "things will work out OK." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• The term has been translated into many different languages, but it had to be abandonned due to copyright infringement claims. μηδείς (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2013 (UTC)