Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 June 10

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June 10

English translation of German word Burlebübele

The word appears in the title of a film, 'Das Burlebübele mag i net', but I can't get a translation in google, bing, microsoft, yandex, etc. For context, the film is an autobiographical account of two lesbian activists who fought for political rights in the 1970s and 1980s - one in East Berlin and the other in West Berlin, so it might be slang? Thanks to anyone who can help. SusunW (talk) 16:24, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like from a southern German dialect. I'd guess "Burle"="Bauer"=farmer, and "Bübele" is definitely a diminutive of "Bube", boy. So my translation is "I don't like the farmer's (little) boy". —Kusma (talk) 16:28, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to be from a Swiss folk song, Es Burebüebli mah-n-i-nit (No farmer boy for me, Mama!). Es Burebüebli mah-n-i-nit, words and tune.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both. That makes sense. SusunW (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Resolved

Hebrew text from otherwise English 1926 US film

Can you please transcribe the following Hebrew-script text (and maybe even translate it)?

It's from the American silent film Raggedy Rose (1926). Full video file of the public-domain film for context: it appears at 11:58.

Online OCRs have repeatedly given me "שיוו בת" ("Shivu Bat" according to Google Translate) but I think this is wrong, since I can find virtually no Google results for that phrase. PseudoSkull (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Could it be Yiddish, considering one of the main actors/ roles is an ashkenazi Jew? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 06:23, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

It also looks somewhat like a reversion of Bathsheba, which could be a coincidence. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 06:30, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the first word is related to שיווי‎ shivúy meaning something like "equality", and that the whole expression may refer to the balance (bottom line) in accounting.  --Lambiam 11:41, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I thought of Hebrew numerals, but that doesn't really help. I think the last letter is chet, not tav.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

And the one-but-last a kaph, making the combination –שיוו כח–‎. The term כח‎ kóach can mean "value", which goes together with the accounting theory.  --Lambiam 19:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The combination שווי כח‎ has some currency and appears to mean "net value" or "equivalent value".  --Lambiam 19:45, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The word שיווי occurs in he-wikt only in the phrase שיווי משקל, which means "equilibrium"; but I've found it in Segal and Dagut's English Hebrew Dictionary. Representing שֵוּוּי shivuy it is glossed as "imparting, giving (of form etc.); equalizing; value, worth". But it is also a way of writing the related שׁׂוִּי shovi "worth, value". I agree that the last letter is not tav, but I think it is he rather than chet, so the word would be bah "in her", or "in it (feminine)".

Which doesn't really help to make sense of it. "Value in her"? Note that it's not definite ("The value"); and that it probably doesn't mean "value of her/it", as that would use a different preposition. --ColinFine (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

OK, so, watch the movie. Previously, the junk dealer was telling someone on the phone he expected $6 on his $2 loan, "confound interest". Then we cut to the Rose, picking through the rags, illicitly improving her own torn hose for a slightly better pair. Then we see the dealer counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on his fingers, then the caption. "Shiva" (as in "sitting shiva") is "7". So, 7 what? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 20:02, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@Jpgordon, Lambiam, and Card Zero: Thanks for the responses. I suspect that there could be an error in this Hebrew dialogue. They're (presumably) not meant to be understood by actual speakers of the language (like in the rare case of a bilingual film), but are just there to show that the character said something in the foreign language. Little Annie Rooney (1925 film), another silent film from 1925, was a film that included a few Greek lines in it. Upon asking some actual Greek speakers who are not on Wiktionary or Wikisource, I determined based on their input that there were typographical errors (or perhaps obsolete spellings?) of some of the words in that dialogue. So just throwing it out there as a possibility only, that whoever came up with the translation for this Raggedy Rose line maybe just found a English–Hebrew dictionary and threw a couple words together that may or may not work in a real speaking context. I could be completely wrong in that guess, though. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: I think you are about right. It looks most like –שיוו כח–‎. It doesn't have an obvious meaning.

Second (left) word: Today's familiar accounting term –כח קנייה–‎=buying power, a construct state. Here we have only half of it, without an article.

First word: it would be grammatically correct only as a plurar past tense declension of שיווה / שיווי . Besides, the letter ש is flipped horizontally.

The very literal translation would be "(they) have balanced (v) power", which doesn't seem useful. It could possibly be –שיור כח–‎ - Shiyur Koah - retention of power, if they mistakenly used the letter Vav (letter) instead of Rosh (letter). If they have made multiple mistakes, it could be a Yiddish blessing meant as encouragement, mostly in positive situations - יישר כוח‎ - Yisher Koich (w:he:יישר כוח)

trespassers william (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I also noted the flipped ש‎. Combined with the ambiguous presentation of another letter – ה‎? ח‎? ת‎? – it appears that the lettering was not photographed from an existing typeset Hebrew text, but created for the film. It is possible that someone, as a kind of dumb mechanical translator, tried to come up with a Hebrew term by using an English-Hebrew dictionary and doing a word by word translation of some term such as "balance value". Given the context in the film, I think it is plausible that (as was my first guess) this was somehow supposed to stand for the bottom line of some financial calculation.  --Lambiam 22:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

PseudoSkull, I concur with trespassers william that יישר כח makes the most sense. While the transliteration for this Hebrew phrase goes something like Yishar Koah, the Yiddish equivalent is pronounced more like Sh'koyakh. Someone who is less familiar with the Talmudic origin of the phrase might spell it in the form presented above. For an explanation of the term itself, see Yeshivish § Patterns of usage. Hope this helps. StonyBrook _babble 11:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

This is all very interesting, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the context of the movie. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 02:19, 18 June 2022 (UTC)