This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
rood omrande blokken
gedinghervattende partij

Glossary entry

Dutch term or phrase:

tot wirsien

English translation:

goot(e) day

Added to glossary by Catherine Muir
Mar 22, 2012 08:37
12 yrs ago
Dutch term

tot wirsien

Dutch to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature early 20th Century Indonesian novel (pidgin English required)
I suspect this is pidgin Dutch for 'auf wiedersehen'. What would that sound like in pidgin English, I wonder?
Proposed translations (English)
4 +2 goot(e) day
5 till we meet again, see you later, goodbye, bye-bye, cheerio, ciao, so long
4 see ya later
4 latahz / laterz
Change log

Mar 22, 2012 09:10: writeaway changed "Field (specific)" from "Poetry & Literature" to "General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters"

Mar 22, 2012 10:47: Catherine Muir changed "Field (specific)" from "General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters" to "Poetry & Literature"

Mar 27, 2012 09:58: writeaway changed "Field (write-in)" from "early 20th Century Indonesian novel" to "early 20th Century Indonesian novel (pidgin English required)"

Discussion

Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 27, 2012:
Yes, I know. That much Dutch I know! In 2000, I worked with the UN as a court translator/interpreter in East
Timor. I didn't know any Portuguese when I arrived but I knew a lot when I left! Looks like I'm picking up 'bad' Dutch now!
F Scott Ophof (X) Mar 27, 2012:
Side note: Bonus from Petro2's answer In case needed elsewhere, the Dutch 'daaag!' and the English 'bye-bye!' fit together perfectly. (Both colloquial, neither pidgin.)
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Scott, since you mentioned 'kute day'... how about you suggest it as an answer. It is the 'most helpful' suggestion and thus deserving of being awarded the points.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Scott, perhaps I'm not making myself clear... the book is written mostly in the Malay lingua franca of the day, with the occasional Dutch or attempts at Dutch. When that happens, I want to retain it, albeit in English translation. I think I have enough suggestions now. I especially like 'kute day', although I would (mis)spell it 'goot day' for clarity and to have the guy speaking with an accent. Cheers!
F Scott Ophof (X) Mar 22, 2012:
Via Indonesian: Close Indonesian could be 'selamat [time-of-day]', then pidginize from there? Also has the advantage of retaining the 'required respectful attitude'.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Scott, I don't know Kriol... ... so I don't know if there's an equivalent. However, your suggestion of 'kute day' is a good one, although 'till laytah' is Hawaiian (I know, 'cause I lived there before coming to Australia) and wouldn't be suitable. Mmmm... 'kute day' and touching his forelock in feigned politeness might work...
F Scott Ophof (X) Mar 22, 2012:
'kute day' or 'till laytah'? If the old man is being (sarcastically) respectful (Kirsten's 'touch forelock' and/or maybe bowing head slightly, as is 'expected' of a coolie speaking to the 'upper class'), the former might fit as pidgin. The latter or close version of Carmen's if simply used as common greeting.
Does Kriol have an equiv. to any of the following?
'Tot wirsien' (pidgin) ='tot weerziens' (Dutch, actually fairly formal, not the average 'goodbye') = 'au revoir' (French) = 'hasta la vista' (Spanish) = 'auf Wiedershen' (German).
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Kirsten, the work is attributed to 'Haji Mukti', but nothing is known about his/her true identity. Whoever s/he was, s/he was a brilliant observer of her/his life and times. The book's point of view is that of the 'natives', the little people, living under Cultuurstelsel, the revenue system that forced farmers to pay revenue to the treasury of the Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. It was the first work of truly indigenous literature, written in the vernacular, rather than in Dutch. It is truly a saga, with a large cast of characters, Dutch, indigenous and mixed race, set in Central Java. Until now (Chapter 14 of 20), the Dutch has been just a smattering, but this chapter has much (too much!) fractured Dutch, hence my several recent questions. I am thinking of just leaving in 'tot wirsien' and following it with 'See you later', so that the reader gets the flavor of the Dutch but also will understand what the guy was saying. At least for now. When I do my checking and editing, I may have an 'Ah, hah!' moment and come up with something better.
Kirsten Bodart Mar 22, 2012:
So, according to Dutch wikipedia (it is a start) We are in the timeframe of so-called 'gouvernements-Maleis' which was an amalgamate of Dutch, (new) Javanese and 'pasar Maleis' (market Malay, the lingua franca in the whole area). In contradiction to other colonial powers and in other colonies, the Dutch did not force their language onto the native population, but learned Malay and only tolerated natives to use a limited version of Dutch in business. Gournements-Maleis was taught in primary schools, hence the later Bahasa Indonesia. Dutch was not a measure for 'success' as it was in Suriname. The question is whether the villain is really trying to speak Dutch as a manner of distinguishing himself from the plebs or whether he speaks this Gouvernements-Maleis. And could we maybe know about the writer? (if we could be that curious)
I am not terribly good at the Crabtree treatment, but he used to say 'good doo' instead of 'good day', which you could use in this (if that fits). Tot weerziens means bye, but in older times they used to say 'good day' and touch their forelock. Maybe Hardy and Scott can be consulted too for some inspiration on strange ways of writing English at least. But that's literal dialect...
writeaway Mar 22, 2012:
I don't know pidgin English well enough to be of any help and no one is 'tinkering' or questioning how and where the question is asked. And no one is disrespecting your wish. I am sorry you have taken a genuine well-meant suggestion the wrong way.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Dunglish Some funny examples of mistakes Dutch speakers have made when trying to speak English are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunglish Although this is not the situation with my Malay speaker trying to impress with his pidgin Dutch, it's in the same neighborhood, I think. Very funny.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
writeaway Maybe you could make a suggestion to answer my query, rather than tinkering with how and where the question is asked. I put it in this pair because others have been helpful with other questions from the same text. I'm happy to leave it where and how it is. Please respect my wish.
writeaway Mar 22, 2012:
since the actual problem is the English and not the meaning of the Dutch, why not post a question in the English monolingual pair in the hope that a specialist in US pidgin English will be able to help?
Fwiw- the field change was made based on the term, whatever the context. Sorry if it made you angry.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Kirsten, I love your suggestion... but how can I convey 'auf wiedersehen' in weird English so that the reader would know that the guy was being pretentious and trying to speak Dutch? Isn't translation fun! Makes us stand on our heads and turn ourselves inside out sometimes!
Henk Peelen Mar 22, 2012:
tot ziens It's just a variation on tot ziens; see the dikke vandalen:
7
·
tot weerziens; tot ziens
afscheidsgroet tot een vertrekkende persoon die men later weer hoopt te ontmoeten
Since Bahasa Indonesia hase no written v and the author uses a p for the dutch v in verrek, I guess it's not only pidgin, but also a necessary adaption nd there actually are different factors which ight blur the picture:
* Did the speaker "learn" proper Dutch or a language we now call dialect (Amsterdams, Gronings, Zeeuws et cetera et cetera)?
* to which degree differs that 1850 language from ours?
* to which degree did the author interprete him right?
* to which degree was he able to write down he did understand (no v in Bahasa Indonesia and probablyu he didn't classify the Dutch g / ch as such, but wrote a letter k for it, like English people do?
Interesting case!
Kirsten Bodart Mar 22, 2012:
As a native to me it is a literal transcription of badly pronounced Dutch 'tot weerziens', which means like you said 'auf wiedersehen'. The Dutch Wikipedia article on Dutch in Indonesian might be interesting for you http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlands_in_Indonesië. It is very hard to actually convey this (it may be a genuine expression used then as part of kind of proto-Indonesian), but I personally think that it would be constructive to firstly look for a type of appropriate pidgin English you would like to use (one that does not come from a back community for example) and then to consequently use it for this person. Failing that, you could just do as the writer of 'Allo 'Allo did and make him speak something weird like officer Crabtree which people can understand (not always the case with pidgin English) but which makes the character look ridiculous. It doesn't have to make sense in another way like Crabtree but will make him look rather inadequate as 'perfectly bilingual'.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
I changed the field back to the original. Please leave it that way.
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Trying to retain the flavor... The speaker (the bad guy from my previous two questions) has pretensions at being multilingual but merely shows his ignorance by speaking bad Dutch. When he says 'tot wirsien', he obviously means 'Auf wiedersehen'. Is there something in pidgin English that might retain that German/Dutch flavor. Or am I hoping for too much and have to just go with something like what Christopher suggested?
Catherine Muir (asker) Mar 22, 2012:
Please play nice, children! 'writeaway' has changed the field from what I input and made what I consider to be a rude comment to a proposed answer. Please change the field back and delete the comment or I will lodge a complaint to the ProZ team. Thank you.
freekfluweel Mar 22, 2012:
eat your heart out http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/goodbye.htm

Proposed translations

+2
7 hrs
Selected

goot(e) day

From pidgin Dutch/Malay, via Dutch and Eng-US, to pidgin Eng-US:
tot wirsien - tot weerziens - good day - goot(e) day
With a touch of servility (touch forelock, bow head).
See also discussion entries by Kirsten & Henk.
'Tot weerziens', literally 'till (we) see (one another) again' may be best exemplified by the French 'au revoir' and German 'auf Wiedersehen', which are true equivalents.

Note: The inability of Indonesians to pronounce V & G helps to go from pidgin Dutch/Malay to Dutch itself, but indeed need not be carried over into the pidgin Eng-US; there one might as well play on whatever Eng-US pidgin one uses. Kriol-AU and Kriol-BZ can be seen as starters in the re-pidginizing process to a pidgin more familiar to the Eng-US reader.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 8 hrs (2012-03-22 16:37:53 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

'kute day' might be mispronounced/misread by the reader as 'cute day...'

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 days (2012-03-27 06:24:26 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Catherine, you suggested 'goot day' yourself. So I can't accept your 'Many thanks', but thank *you* instead for the points. :-)
Example sentence:

Goot(e) day, mista.

Note from asker:
Yes, Scott, that's it! Thank you so much.
Peer comment(s):
agree Petro Ebersöhn (X)
14 mins
Dankie!
agree Kirsten Bodart : beautiful :) If you add a movement to it, please make sure he would have had a forelock to touch ;)
17 hrs
:-> But if I were that old man, I might silently add '...not really'.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I used 'goot day'. Many thanks."
19 mins

see ya later

Of course there are innumerable ways of saying this; but this is one!
Note from asker:
Thanks, Carmen. Please see my note to Christopher below.
Something went wrong...
37 mins

latahz / laterz

There are various forms of pidgin English, but I found this reference on the internet: http://www.e-hawaii.com/pidgin/pidgin-english-words-starting...
The other page at http://www.june29.com/hlp/lang/pidgin.html might prove useful too.
Reference:

http://www.e-hawaii.com/pidgin/pidgin-english-words-starting-with-l

http://www.june29.com/hlp/lang/pidgin.html

Note from asker:
Thanks, Christopher. What about pidgin English from Holland, rather than Hawaii? Is there such a thing? What about a rough, anglicised version of 'Daaag'? This is really hard! Trying to keep the flavor of the use of pidgin Dutch that will be understandable to readers in US English!
Something went wrong...
28 mins

till we meet again, see you later, goodbye, bye-bye, cheerio, ciao, so long

It depends on the situation, or the style of the writer.

cheerio, ciao and bye-bye (or just bye) is very much informal. The rest can be used in any situation.

'till we meet again' sounds a bit too dramatic to use in everyday speech, except maybe in poetry or something like that, even though this is the correct direct translation.

I should say 'so long' would be a safe choice.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 8 hrs (2012-03-22 16:47:59 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I'm still learning, so if I post this in the wrong, please forgive me.
Catherine, I can't give myself out as an expert on pidgin. I only know that it is a mixture of two languages used when the speakers cannot speak on another's language, 'pidgin' being the Chinese pronunciation of 'business' according to Collins English Dictionary.
Note from asker:
I have requested that 'writeaway' delete his/her comment above. If not, I will lodge a complaint with the ProZ team. While your suggestion isn't exactly what I am looking for, I appreciate your effort and I'm sorry to see the tone of the so-called 'neutral' comment.
Petro, I found by 'googling' that 'tot ziens' is proper Dutch for 'until we meet again', so it seems it may not be pidgin after all. Is 'tot wirsien' proper Dutch, too, or is it a mixture of Dutch and German with several syllables missing?
Peer comment(s):
neutral writeaway : hardly pidgin anything
6 mins
disagree Christopher Smith (X) : The asker asked for pidgin English.
10 mins
agree F Scott Ophof (X) : The first two are correct translations of the pidginized Dutch, just not yet pidgin Eng-US. The Dutch influence in both Afrikaans and Indonesian makes Afrikaans very helpful in translating to (correct) English.
7 hrs
Thanks Scott! And you are write, Afrikaans helps a lot in translating Dutch to English.
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search