Kinder Egg Linguistics

General discussion about learning languages
dampingwire
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Kinder Egg Linguistics

Postby dampingwire » Thu May 13, 2021 12:42 pm

Someone has collected a large number of translations of the warning leaflet in a kinder egg: https://medium.com/a-lockdown-miscellan ... f98d625b37.

Then people sent in translations from all over the world (including Sumerian and Middle Egyptian).

I initially though that Gregg shorthand might have been the sort of scribbled note left by one pastry shop mployee to another, but apparently it is a real thing!
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新完全マスター N2聴解 : 94 / 103新完全マスター N2読解 : 99 / 177
新完全マスター N2文法 : 197 / 197TY Comp. German : 0 / 389

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Iversen
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Kinder Egg Linguistics

Postby Iversen » Thu May 13, 2021 1:44 pm

That's what I always wanted my log thread to look like ... if I just could pull it off (under the condition that I should know the languages involved, but the Kindereggian speakers as a community clearly surpass me in that respect). And no, (DK) jeg synes heller ikke at de der ækle og farlige Kindereggs skulle gives til små skvadderhoveder, som risikerer at få dem galt i halsen og blive kvalt. :x <--- my contribution to the project (in Danish=
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dampingwire
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Re: Kinder Egg Linguistics

Postby dampingwire » Thu May 13, 2021 7:55 pm

Iversen wrote: (DK) jeg synes heller ikke at de der ækle og farlige Kindereggs skulle gives til små skvadderhoveder, som risikerer at få dem galt i halsen og blive kvalt. :x <--- my contribution to the project (in Danish)


Well maybe Google Translate doesn't do justice to your prose, but I suspect that Ferrero won't accept that submission (although Keith Kahn-Harris, the collector of translations, who wrote the article) might!
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新完全マスター N2聴解 : 94 / 103新完全マスター N2読解 : 99 / 177
新完全マスター N2文法 : 197 / 197TY Comp. German : 0 / 389

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Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Kinder Egg Linguistics

Postby Iversen » Fri May 14, 2021 7:00 am

Google Translate does a fairly good job since you can get the general meaning, but there are a few instructive inaccuracies (and I also forgot the special warning aimed at less than three year olds, who can't read the warnings themselves).

First, "skvadderhoveder" are just fools in general, so here it is necessary to limit the scope to the small ones. Secondly, you may strangle somebody (or rather, you may not!!), but "blive kvalt" is choking without external interference. Thirdly: "få noget i den gale hals" has a precise meaning, namely getting something (like a disgusting and dangerous kinderegg) down your trachea instead of down your esophagus as intended.

I pondered translating "Kinderegg" into Danish, but since even the Anglophones leave it as it is in German (probably to make it appear even more ominous and threatening) I can't see any reason to translate it into Danish. Besides "børneæg" would have strange connotations, like small children coming out of big eggs. But Homo sapiens ain't no oviparous species, I'm told...
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