On May 27th, 2017, my personal Facebook account turns ten years old.
Thinking of a way I could change the account to reflect my growth / changes since then, I decided to compile a number of quotes, one from each language featured in my video.
Thanks to issues with fonts I transliterated the Hebrew, Yiddish and Burmese. While I did the same for Russian and Ukrainian I also provided the original.
EDIT: I transliterated the Tajik portion as well.
Here you are!
Mervel zo ret, dimeziñ n’eo ket.
(Death is necessary, marriage isn’t)
– Breton Proverb
My a’th kar milweyth moy es ow brithel.
I love you a thousand times more than my mackerel
– Found on Cornish language learning forums for Valentine’s Day.
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy
(Not my circus, not my monkeys)
– Polish idiom, meaning “I didn’t create this problem”
Ég skal sýna þér í tvo heimana.
(I will show you the two worlds)
– (Icelandic idiom meaning, “I will beat you up, very badly”)
Paasilerpara inuit kalaallit pissaaneqaqisut.
(This I recognize: the Greenlandic people possess a mighty strength.)
– Nanook (Greenlandic Band)
Tout ce qui n’est pas clair n’est pas français.
(Everything that isn’t clear isn’t French)
– Antoine de Rivarol
“Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste.”
(Broken Irish is better than clever English)
– Irish saying
“Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon”
A nation without a language, a nation without a soul
– Welsh proverb
Наша мета – знайти щось нове. (Nasha meta – znaiti shchos’ Nove)
Our goal is to find something new
– the Ukrainian Duolingo Course
Я скажу по секрету, между нами,
Самое главное – money, money.
За них сегодня можно все купить
Их нужно тратить, а не копить.
I am telling you a secret between us,
The most important thing is money, money
It can buy anything today,
It is necessary to spend it, not to save it.
– Leningrad, “Money”
Stilla kvøldarmyrkrið lokkar ljósini fram á skipum ið liggja við kai.
(A quiet evening darkness casts light forward from ships resting by the harbor.)
– Terji Rasmussen, Faroese Singer
“Cazi. Doida ja réidne goruda buhtisin. Dan éazi. Doida ja raidne.”
(Water, cleanses and purifies the body. This water. Cleanses and purifies.”)
– Sofia Jannok, Sami singer, “Bali Cahci” (waters of Bali),
Ven Shlomo homelekh volt dikh gezen, volt er gevolt hobn nor eyn froy.
If King Solomon would have seen you, he would have only wanted one wife
– (Michael Wex, in his Yiddish language phrasebook “Just Say Nu”)
Disfala Waes Tisa hemi tok olsem, “Laef blong yumi, hemi no fitim tingting blong yumi! !Ya, evrisamting hemi barava no fitim wanem yumi tingim!”
(Solomon Islands Pijin translation of Ecclesiastes 1:2)
Yu no talem se, wan sel nomo.
(Don’t ever say, ”just one shell”)
-the Ni-Vanuatu Kava Song
„MI NO WOK MANI –
BAI MI KEN GIVIM U PLANTI SAMTING
NAU U LAIK GO AWAY
LUS TINGTING LONG MI
MANGI LONG PELES
OI SORY LEWA
POROMIS YA OLSEM WANEM”
(“I don’t have a stable job, but I can give you lots more, now if you want to go away and forget about me, the local boy, I’m sorry, love, I can promise you this…”)
-Daniel Bilip, the “Nambawan hitmaker bilong Papua New Guinea”
Donde hay gana, hay maña.
(When there is something to win, there is a means to get it.)
– Spanish proverb
“Jos et mun tyylii tajuu, se meinaa että sulla ei oo tyylitajuu”
(If you don’t get my style, it means that you got no sense of style.)
– Cheek, Finnish rapper
“Jag vill ha en egen måne, jag kan åka till
Där jag kan glömma att du lämnat mig
Jag kan sitta på min måne och göra vad jag vill
Där stannar jag tills allting ordnat sig. ”
(I want to have my own moon that I can travel to,
There I can forget that you left me.
I can sit on my moon and do what I want
I’m staying there until everything gets better.)
– Ted Gärdestad, Swedish singer
“Leser aldri bøker, og se på TV er jeg lei
jeg liker Zappa, men Zappa liker sikkert ikke meg”
(I never read books, sick of watching TV,
I like Zappa, but Zappa sure doesn’t like me.)
Lars Kilevold, Norwegian singer, “Livet er for kjipt” (Life Sucks)
Du skal ikke tro, du er noget. Du skal ikke tro, at du er lige så meget som os. Du skal ikke tro, at du er klogere end os…
(You are not to believe, that you are something, you are not to believe that you are as worth as must as we are, you are not to believe that you are cleverer than us…)
– Law of Jante, Danish literary touchstone
Nu, az ma yihiyeh?
Well, so what? (Common Israeli idiom)
„Ich kann zu meiner Reisen
Nicht wählen mit der Zeit,
Muß selbst den Weg mir weisen
In dieser Dunkelheit.“
“I cannot choose the time
For beginning my journey.
I must show myself the way
In this darkness”
Wilhelm Mühler
April doet wat ie wil
(April Does whatever it wants)
Dutch Proverb
Em tempo de guerra, qualquer buraco é trincheira.
(In wartime, every hole is a trench.)
– Portuguese proverb
“Mu südames oled kirjutatud luule,
mida nüüd vaid loen.
Kuid ma tean: need sõnad heidan tuulde
ja vaikselt peitu poen,
vaikselt peitu poen.”
“In my heart you have written poetry,
That I am now reading
But I know: these words I cast into the wind
And I go into hiding
And I go into hiding.”
Ott Lepland, Estonian singer, “Sa Ju Tead”,
“Aki mer, az nyer”
(He who dares, wins.)
– Hungarian Proverb
Биёед, канӣ санҷем!
Let us try it.
(By-yo-ed, kanii sanjem!)
– Tajik sentence from the Tatoeba sentence database.
mooj\wa bemA dOO kheji\ shä’ mä.
(Even though it is raining, we will travel onwards.)
– Myanmar Word for Word.
Italiano – La verita ha una buona faccia ma cattivi abiti
(The truth has a good face but bad clothes.)
– Italian Proverb
Absolutely no connection to the last quote there. Nuh-uh.
A World With Little Worlds 