We all know the delicious zeroglottism of online translations:
The Swedish (the English has only one sentence) Wikipedia-entry tells me that:
Namnet kan ha antingen samiskt eller finskt ursprung. Det samiska ordet kuorpa betyder ”land, härjat av skogseld” och luobbal utvidgning/lugnvatten i å/älv.
when i have it traduced, out comes this:
The name may have either Sami or Finnish origin. The Sami kuorpa word means "country, wracked by FOREST FIRE" and luobbal expansion / calm waters in the / river.
country wracked by forest fire by the calm waters of the river? In 13 letters? The Sami (or the Finns) must be precise people. (Since I saw their perfect podlike reindeer-sledges in "Kautokeino opprøret" I favor the Sami...)
Just groping around: About Greiff's "mástil rosa e negro": a pink and black mast? Except for the obvious, mástil also means the neck of a guitar, or any such music instrument. Often black and sometimes made of rosewood.
Oct 5, 2008
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ReplyDeleteyou are creating delicious new words like zeroglottism going from zerolexism to infinitelexism.
Words! Languages!... melodies, tasty syllables, endless combinations, layers of meanings, sounds of meaning…Korpilombolo! The zeroglott translation is good (but its not Sami or Finnish, its Meänkieli); ” country wracked by forest fire by the calm waters of the river”, I belive the midsummer night must be beautiful there. And beautiful the poems by de Greiff: ”Quiero palabras: palabras...! para urdir una canción”.
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