Once you know that "barf" means "snow" in Persian, I suppose this makes sense...

[pne]

Comments

[allegrox.livejournal.com]

Now that's funny. I had forgotten that Persian was sometimes written with Cyrillic though.

Persian and Cyrillic

[pne.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten that Persian was sometimes written with Cyrillic though.

It is? Hadn't heard about that.

Wait... isn't Tajik basically Persian, but written in Cyrillic? Or one of those languages...

forgive my tajik but...

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

Барф сафӣд зӣбо аст.
Ман рӯя барф зӣбо сафӣд астфарог.
Акнӯн барф зард зашту аст.

برف سفيد زيبا است.
من روي برف زيبا سفيد استفرا غكردم.
اكنون برف زرد زشتو است.

Barf sefid zibâ ast.
Man ruye barf zibâ sefid astfarâgh.
Aknun barf zardi zeštu ast.

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[pne.livejournal.com]

I understood none of those.

The Arabic script seems to be a bit longer, though -- astfarâgh became something like "astfarâghkardam"(?).

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

oops... that was a mistake... the "kardam" shouldn't be there.

The translation is:
דער װײַס שנײ איז שײן.
איך האָב געבראָכן מיך אױף דעם שײנע װײַסע שנײ.
איצט איז דער שנײ געל און גרױליק.

Alternatively:

Su nie brancu est beru.
Eo so istadu bombidu in su nie brancu e beru.
Como su nie est grogu e feu.

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

It's only funny when you realise what "bombare", "ברעכן", and "астфарог" mean. The Tajik isn't inherently funny, it's only funny if you can understand Tajik and English.

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[pne.livejournal.com]

I have no idea about "bombare" or "астфарог", and with "ברעכן" I had to think a while since my first thought was "break".

But if it has the same second meaning as modern German "brechen" then I might see where you're getting at.

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

Just an addendum for those who can't read Tajik, Farsi, Parsi, Yiddish, or Sardinian:

English translation:
The white snow is beautiful.
I barfed on the beautiful white snow.
Now the snow is yellow and nasty.

The Tajik word used for "yellow" also means "pale"; it works better for describing the colour one would expect such snow to be than the English, Yiddish, or Sardinian terms.

Deutschsprachlige Uberzetsung
Der weiße Schnee ist schön.
Ich habe gebrochen mich auf dem schönem weißem Schnee.
Jetzt ist der Schnee gelb und graulich.

(I'm sure there are errors in the German, as it's written from a Yiddish perspective, and I'm not sure that "graulich" is a word, but I tried)

Re: forgive my tajik but...

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to be fair, the Cyrillic deserves a separate transliteration:

Barf safîd zîbo ast.
Man rûya barf zîbo safîd astfarog.
Aknûn barf zard zaštu ast.

As you can tell, one of the main differences between Farsi, Parsi, and Tajik is that Farsi and Parsi would pronounce alif as a long "a", while it would generally be pronounced in Tajik as an "o"; most "e" sounds in Farsi and Parsi are "a" sounds in Tajik.

Farsi and Parsi can also limit long vowels to "â" only, the rest of the written long vowels being pronounced as short, while in Tajik this is not the case.

gr*ulich

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that "graulich" is a word, but I tried

I think the word you are looking for is "greulich" (old spelling) / "gräulich" (new spelling) - "horrid".

The new spelling connects it orthographically with "Grauen" (horror, premonition) but, unfortunately, also with "grau" (grey); "gräulich" used to mean only, and now means also, "greyish".

BTW, is it really "gebrokhn mikh" in Yiddish? I thought that Yiddish did the Russian thing and had a fixed reflexive pronoun, and expected "ikh hob gebrokhn zikh".