LINGUIST List 2.237

Friday, 17 May 1991

Disc: Tongue Twisters

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Re: Catalan Tongue Twisters
2. Charles, German tongue twisters
3. Wayles Browne, Re: French Tongue Twisters
4. bert peeters, Dutch tongue twisters

>From Catalan:
Setze jutges d'un jutjat menjen el fetge d'un penjat.

Sixteen judges from a tribunal eat the liver of a hanged person.

Milton Azevedo

UC Berkeley

I have a variant of one of the German examples, which I
think works a little better rhythmically. I heard as part of
a song, which went,

Bald kommt der Hans nach Haus',
Soon Hans is coming home,
freut sich die Lies'.
Liese (or Liesl) is pleased.

Ob er aber ueber Oberammergau,
but whether he's (coming) via Oberammergau,

Oder aber ueber Unterammergau,
or rather via Unterammergau,

Oder aber ueberhaupt nicht kommt,
or not at all,

ist nicht gewiss.
isn't certain.


-charles hoequist

A literary use of the tongue-twister format is Jacques Pre'vert's line

"La pipe au papa du pape Pie pue."
'The pipe of the papa of Pope Pius stinks.'

As a native speaker of Dutch, I can hardly forgive myself for not having
shared with other readers of LINGUIST these tongue twisters BEFORE quoting the
French ones in an earlier posting.

1) De kat krabt de krollen van de trap.
 The cat scratches the curls from the steps.

 Sorry... I have no idea what this is supposed to mean (even in Dutch!)

2) De meid sneed zeven scheve sneden brood.
 The maidservant cut seven crooked slices of bread

 (And thanks to Tony Evenhuis for suggesting an acceptable translation for
 the adjectif scheef)

3) Wie niets weet en weet dat hij niets weet
 The one who doesn't know anything and knows that he doesn't know anything

 weet veel meer dan iemand
 knows a lot more than the one

 die niets weet en weet dat hij niets weet
 who doesn't know anything and knows that he doesn't know anything

 (The English translation is much more long-winded than the Dutch one,
 and that makes the latter into a tongue-twister - I should say the Dutch
 version)

Bert Peeters <peeterstasman.cc.utas.edu.au>

[End Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 237]