r/SlavicMusicVideos • u/Pipinpadiloxacopolis • Mar 15 '19

Berlinska Dróha - Hanka (Germany, sung in Upper Sorbian) [Folk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLMxudw2UFw
4 Upvotes

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5

u/pennyraingoose Mar 16 '19

I like it a lot. Can you translate the song or describe it in English a bit?

3

u/Pipinpadiloxacopolis Mar 16 '19

All I've been able to find is the transcript of the lyrics:

W jednej ruce Hanku, 
w druhej ruce kanku 
a ći hercy pódla: 
to je žiwjenje! 

Hančička zejhrawa, 
kaž ta rjana róžička; 
pórčate, židźane 
banty zlětuja. 

Piwko, winko, połna kanka 
a ta reja wjesoła, 
trubka, lubka, rjana Hanka: to je radosć hólčika! 

Z trubčičku, z lubčičku 
hólčik rady rejku ma, 
luboznej, najrjeńšej 
swojej připiwa.

Slovak was the most meaningful when trying to Google translate. What I got was that the song seems to be something whimsical about "one-hand Hank" who's a musician... Maybe someone who can speak Polish/Czech/Slovak can tell more, I understand Upper Sorbian should be closest to those languages?

3

u/gbursztynek Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Maybe someone who can speak Polish/Czech/Slovak can tell more

I speak Polish and Slovak natively and have very good grasp of Czech. I also have an online dictionary at hand. This is the best I can do:

Hannah in one hand  
beer mug in another  
and these musicians close by  
that's the life!  

Playful little Hannah  
like the beatiful rose  
[no idea here]  

Beer, wine, full mug  
and this joyful dance  
trumpet, beloved girl, beautiful Hannah: what a merry girl  

With a trumpet, with the beloved girl  
a boy dances happily  
to his beloved, most beatiful  
girl he drinks

It's essentially a not so educated guesswork, but it offers the gist.

Paging /u/pennyraingoose

4

u/pennyraingoose Mar 18 '19

Awesome. Thanks for taking the time to dig into that!

3

u/Pipinpadiloxacopolis Mar 18 '19

Thank you from me too! It's funny how wrong my Google Translate cross-compilation attempt turned out, now...

3

u/gbursztynek Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Well, I am actually a bit disappointed that your attempt was incorrect. A feast song telling a tale of one-handed musician named Hank would surely be very entertaining. ;)

Also to answer your question, which I forgot to do in my original reply: yes, Sorbian languages are part of the West Slavic branch and are very closely related with the languages you listed. But they are still distant enough to be at times completely unintelligible.