What does this say?

[rmr9]

A few years back I visited the altstadt in Düsseldorf and visited all of the brewpubs there that I could. I was taking a stroll down memory lane this morning and saw this picture I took in the Schumacher brewery…anyone have any idea what it says? I have a hard time reading the old script style German, and I’m also not sure if it’s in high German or the local dialect. Part of time thinks it would be cool to stencil it on the wall in my home bar, but I don’t want to be like the guy who gets a tattoo in another language but has no idea what it says.

Any thoughts?

 

[lumpher]

It's not High German. I can make out the first part, but the second part throws me with different words and not sure what some of the letters are. As best as I can tell, the first part says "In the old days some things were great - ". Not sure about the second part, but it says something about making light beers. Maybe a native German speaker (or somebody who speaks it better than I do) can chime in with a real translation.

 

[DBhomebrew]

@Miraculix

 

[rmr9]

@Miraculix

Ha! Thanks, can’t believe I didn’t think to do that from the start!

 

[rmr9]

It's not High German. I can make out the first part, but the second part throws me with different words and not sure what some of the letters are. As best as I can tell, the first part says "In the old days some things were great - ". Not sure about the second part, but it says something about making light beers. Maybe a native German speaker (or somebody who speaks it better than I do) can chime in with a real translation.

Thanks for the good start on it!

 

[Miraculix]

A few years back I visited the altstadt in Düsseldorf and visited all of the brewpubs there that I could. I was taking a stroll down memory lane this morning and saw this picture I took in the Schumacher brewery…anyone have any idea what it says? I have a hard time reading the old script style German, and I’m also not sure if it’s in high German or the local dialect. Part of time thinks it would be cool to stencil it on the wall in my home bar, but I don’t want to be like the guy who gets a tattoo in another language but has no idea what it says.

Any thoughts? View attachment 771770

That is some local dialect that I cannot fully understand.

I think it means somehting like "How good the people have been in the old times in certain things/ways of doing somehting/thinking, how well have they invented the way of how to create such delicious beer".

It is a bit hard to translate as the sentence does not paraphrase well into English.

 

[lumpher]

Ok, so it sounds like I was close in the first part, but now I don't feel bad about not understanding the second part if a native German doesn't completely get it either.

 

[rmr9]

Thanks for the thoughts! Probably a dumb American thing but I never realized how many dialects there are in European languages. I always thought German was German and Italian was Italian etc. never fully appreciated the regional differences that exist until recently

 

[bracconiere]

It is a bit hard to translate as the sentence does not paraphrase well into English.

and now we have BMC!

 

[Sørine Thaarup]

I was working on a translation (googling) and found this:



There is a nice translation in the comments.

 

[Miraculix]

What I should have mentioned, it is a little poetic sentence, it rhymes, so it is quite a nice sentence to read. Not as wild and confusing as my "translation".

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks for the thoughts! Probably a dumb American thing but I never realized how many dialects there are in European languages. I always thought German was German and Italian was Italian etc. never fully appreciated the regional differences that exist until recently

There are certain dialects in Germany that a "normal" German cannot understand at all. You get some words in between but the rest is just questionmarks. It used to be so extreme that in some areas, people could barely understand the inhabitants of the next village. Three villages further and 0 chance of verbal communication.

The most prominent ones are plattdeutsch from the north, I can understand that a bit as I'm from the north and then there is mundart from the south (Bavaria) which I cannot understand at all.

 

[rmr9]

I was working on a translation (googling) and found this:



There is a nice translation in the comments.

Awesome, thanks for posting this!

 

[rmr9]

I really appreciate everyone’s input, it seems like this may well be solved!

There are certain dialects in Germany that a "normal" German cannot understand at all. You get some words in between but the rest is just questionmarks. It used to be so extreme that in some areas, people could barely understand the inhabitants of the next village. Three villages further and 0 chance of verbal communication.

The most prominent ones are plattdeutsch from the north, I can understand that a bit as I'm from the north and then there is mundart from the south (Bavaria) which I cannot understand at all.

The scale of the differences is crazy. Village to village being different is wild to me! I watched a YouTube video where they interviewed people from all over Germany with different dialects and it all sounded like “German” - I wouldn’t have ever known they were different. Now Dutch on the other hand….

 

[balrog]

As an American with German ancestry, I studied German two years in university. At the end the professor proudly told us, "Congratulations, you can now speak with a four year old."

After reading this thread, I have no chance.

 

[Miraculix]

I really appreciate everyone’s input, it seems like this may well be solved!

The scale of the differences is crazy. Village to village being different is wild to me! I watched a YouTube video where they interviewed people from all over Germany with different dialects and it all sounded like “German” - I wouldn’t have ever known they were different. Now Dutch on the other hand….

I can fully understand that. It was the same to me with different English dialects within the UK before I lived there for five years. After the third year I slowly started to really be able to hear those different accents when people were talking.

But in terms of platt and mundart, those are actually more languages on their own than varieties of the German language. Platt for example is closer to Dutch than to hochdeutsch. Platt has also a lot of English terms inside. And mundart.... I have no idea where that came from crazy mountain folks.

For example the word "waterkant", pronounced "water-c*u*n*t", means coast in platt. Isn't that a fun language .

(Water comes from English and kant comes from the German Kante, which means edge. So it would be water edge directly translated, and the edge of the water is the coast.)

 

[Yesfan]

I'm interested is seeing what that says. I'm sure OP already tried it before posting this, but Google Translate turned up nothing for me.

 

[bracconiere]

(Water comes from English

i thought english came from german?

 

[rmr9]

i thought english came from german?

The transition from an old proto-Germanic to English is pretty convoluted and hugely interesting. There’s a fantastic podcast about the English language…I can’t recall the name. I’ll have to dig and see if I can find it.

I'm interested is seeing what that says. I'm sure OP already tried it before posting this, but Google Translate turned up nothing for me.

Yeah I tried to google translate but it seems to be in a German dialect, Plattdeutsch or something similar. I went down a rabbit hole of trying to sort out what it could be, seems Düsseldorf is in the middle of a group of dialects so direct translation was a no-go. With that being said, there’s an excellent Reddit page a few posts above that more or less provides a translation, if not 100% directly, it captures the spirit of the thing

 

[rmr9]

i thought english came from german?

Not only German but you get a lot of Norse influence as well. Not to mention Latin, Greek and French.

 

[rmr9]

As an American with German ancestry, I studied German two years in university. At the end the professor proudly told us, "Congratulations, you can now speak with a four year old."

After reading this thread, I have no chance.

I took a couple years of German in undergrad as well. I had 8:00AM German lecture which I was only half awake for. The professor used to laugh when I was called on to answer something in German because sometimes I would insert English words into my sentences. He said I sounded like a Mennonite!

 

[Miraculix]

You guys can't be too interested in what this translates to if you don't bother to read the whole discussion

 

[mashpaddled]

It says, "In the old days some things were great but purity laws took the fun out of beer."

I guess Germans have always pined for Martin House beers.

 

[balrog]

i thought english came from german?

Not mine but cannot recall the source: other languages borrow from each other, English hauls languages into a dark alleyway, beats them up, and takes little bits and baubles from them, and runs on and on.

sometimes I would insert English words into my sentences. He said I sounded like a Mennonite!

insert English and French words and you would sound Swiss.