~ On the Subject of Translations ~ by Walt Vogdes

Les Hopper, compiler of "1,001 German Beer Stein Translations", is to be thanked for his totally voluntary and uncompensated efforts to support the hobby of stein collecting by helping collectors understand their steins. Not having the ability to translate the German expressions on his steins himself, when he started this project he turned to his friends, and was promptly told "they can't be translated." As Les states in his book, "Of course the expressions can be translated word by word with the help of a good dictionary; but they really don't make sense in this form. What [these] friends meant was that the expressions probably would lose their true meaning in translation." Not ready to accept defeat, Les pressed ahead, and with the aid of many friends and fellow collectors was able to compile 1,001 translations into book form, which was distributed to all members of Stein Collectors International at no cost. Some may disagree with the translations he has published, and some may argue that they could have (or should have) been stated differently, but if it was as simple as making sausage, we'd just feed the German text in one end of the sausage maker and take our translations out the other end.

Many of the German expressions or verses which we find on steins were written more than 100 years ago, using the idiom of the time. The German language has always included numerous regional dialects and variants, and the writing itself (the alphabet as well as the spelling of certain words) has changed over the course of time. Further, the German form of expression, especially sentence structure, is quite different from American-English expression, and it's common for two knowledgeable German-speaking individuals to disagree on a translation. Further complicating the matter is the fact that idiomatic expressions rarely lend themselves to literal interpretation (imagine the confusion likely to result in translations of "raining cats and dogs", or "drop-dead gorgeous", or "a face that could stop a clock", or "between a rock and a hard place"). Finally we have the problem of rhyme. Not only is it unlikely that the English counterparts of two rhyming German words will themselves rhyme, it is unlikely that they will even appear at the end of the translated phrase in English! For example, the simple verse Frohsinn und Heiterkeit, Willkommen allezeit is translated as "Happiness and merriment are welcome any time", preserving the meaning, but surrendering the poetic feeling. Consequently we must realize that translations of these expressions and verses is imprecise, and involves compromise.

Let's consider two examples, one quite short and the other a lengthy verse, both of which have caused debate about how they should be translated.

First let's consider the German expression Gegen Bier und Tabaks Dunst Ist alle Weiberlist umsunst. Les Hopper's "1,001 German Beer Stein Translations" tells us this means "Against the aroma of tobacco and beer, all women's craftiness is for naught." When this was posted in SteinTalk, a visitor suggested a better translation could be obtained by using an English-German dictionary, which produced the following: "All of women's beguiling ways can not hold up against beer and the smoke of tobacco". That was held to be better, and another alternative proposed: "All of womens's beguiling ways and cunning are in vain against beer and the fumes of tobacco."

At this point I think we have to stop and ask if we really see any consequential difference in the above translations - I certainly don't, but that judgment is based exclusively on comparing three expressions in English, and not on any first-hand knowledge of the German involved.