Yes, I remember being struck by this the second year that we visited Germany. In the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, there was a large sign in front of one plant that read: Vorsicht - Gift! (Beware - Poison!) It turns out that 'gift' originally had a rather ambiguous meaning, comprising both 'present' and 'poison'. English went with the former meaning only, while German kept the latter.
It's a lovely example of what a linguistics prof whom I once heard called 'false friends'. You think you know what the word means, but you're wrong. (Try Eng/Fr - preservative/preservatif if you want another amusing example.)
Bending this back to Glorantha, there must be some lovely possibilities here for people who speak closely-related languages to blow their comprehension badly. Anything from just a poor accent distorting the words, to out-and-out miscomprehension of a very similar word. Best example that I can recall at the moment would be my French-speaking colleagues at work, who often pronounce 'eligible' such that it comes out sounding like 'illegible' to any English speaker, mostly by moving the emphasis from the first to the second syllable.
Alison
- On Sun, 11/7/10, Osentalka <Osentalka_at_H19j2VkNXty3fnGDv1yYJMVR5B3qipzSxPkgL3GyAbHvyuF7Nzj_hKVRDdg46dADIByGAh70edskhGVeLw.yahoo.invalid> wrote:Gift / Poison in German
That is NOT a mistranslation:
A messenger was offered a cut of wine when he arrived at his destination.
That cup of wine was most of the time a gift to the messenger (something he got to express that he was welcome), but at some occasion he was given instead a cup of poisoned wine, to show that he wasn´t welcome.
So the gift / poison translation is a well tought over one. So true... :-)
From: hcarteau_at_ZojCfq0GS7gxrdcdq8mYbMR_9Ptl3os0nrZ_NCY0GNNLEPw9zYb08Fam7NY6ESbL2km8BG7OZoaKzQ.yahoo.invalid
BTW, do you know that "Gift" means "Poison" in German ? This is another example
of mis-translation. The Gift Carriers are in fact bearers of poison, the most
powerful and insidous poison of all : the poison of ignorance. It is even today
still poured down men's throats by smelly pagans and stupid heretics...
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