[convert colour negative film to postive]

Of course, if it is already scanned, just apply my invert.cube LUT.

[A poem in Language Y]

5 hours ago, Alfred said:

Magenta is also called fuchsia

Well, according to Wikipedia, fuchsia is a quintary color 7.5° away from magenta on the color wheel. I mean, I know where magenta is on the wheel, I just never knew what it was called in Slovak. 

[A poem in Language Y]

47 minutes ago, Alfred said:

In the ‘Colours general’ section on page 4 of the above document there is a glyph whose right-hand end is derived from the conventional heraldic hatching for purpure (purple). The English translation in the PDF file refers to ‘magenta’ rather than purple, but magenta is not the same as purple (or violet, as purple is usually called in relation to resistor colour codes). Magenta can be described as an ‘extraspectral’ colour, since it doesn’t exist as a single wavelength of light and therefore doesn’t occur in the spectrum of colours which is obtained by shining white light through a single prism.

Wait, it is magenta now? I actually had to look it up in my dictionary. I always assumed magenta was what we call fialová in Slovak, but that is purple in English, or perhaps violet. But magenta is purpurová. Hmmm... I guess I learn something every day.

[convert colour negative film to postive]

What size film? And what kind of positive? Film, paper, digital?

[A poem in Language Y]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Black pot

Yes, I saw that and stopped after seeing it called the cauldron a pot. What next? Calling the kettle black?

[A poem in Language Y]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

I would like to see your poetic translation too please.

Well, since you said it was based on something children might recite, here is something I came up with. It does not make much sense, but it is very rhythmic, so children would probably like it:

Čierny kotlík, biela kaša,
farba nášho mecenáša.
Keď sa dobre napapkáme,
potom si aj pospinkáme.
Biela, modrá, červená,
kam sa skryla zelená?

Translation? Well, the online services failed royally on this one, so here is just a literal translation:

Black cauldron, white porridge,
our patron’s color.
After we eat well,
we shall sleep.
White, blue, red,
where did green hide?

For the record, white, blue and red are the colors of the Slovak flag (also used by most Slavic countries).

[A poem in Language Y]

10 minutes ago, William Overington said:

First of all. I am not a linguist. I am interested in languages, and I know some bits about some of them, but just at a general level.

A soft g in English is like as in the word 'general' or 'gentle'.

A hard g is like in 'golf' or 'got'.

So the Esperanto word 'ruĝa' is pronounced, as best I know, like, in pseudo-English roo-jaah.

The Esperanto word ĝardeno, which means 'garden, is pronounced in pseudo-English as 'jar-den-oh'.

The Esperanto j is like an English y whereas the Esperanto j circumflex like the j in the French word 'je', which mean 'I' in English.

William

 

Thanks. The Slovak j is also like the English y, as was its original meaning. It was created during the Renaissance to replace the consonant i in Latin words, such as maior. The Italians still refer to it i lunga (long i).

[Poem in my language]

51 minutes ago, William Overington said:

In addition, I had wondered if it was Strangers in the night and I played it on YouTube and there was nothing about the moon so what with the wandering and the moon I thought that it could not possibly be Strangers in the night.

William

 

Well, in my home country people would just write their own lyrics to foreign songs, sometimes completely unrelated to the original lyrics. They just made sure their lyrics matched the music. I just thought the idea of two strangers wandering (and wondering) at night would give it away. Clearly, I was wrong about that.

Heck, they even do it to the titles of plays and movies. I was about twenty when I was waiting in front of the Opera House in Bratislava for my mom to come out (she was an opera singer), and someone asked me what was playing that night. Well, it was As You Like It, but the Slovak title was Čo len chcete, which means Whatever You Want. So I said, Čo len chcete. He gave me an annoyed look and said, oh come on, what’s on tonight. And I just repeated, Čo len chcete. And he raised his voice, telling me he had an important guest from the Soviet Union, so tell me what’s on! And I growled and pointed at the poster he was standing in front of all this time and which said Čo len chcete was on, and I said, Čo len chcete, by Shakespeare. He then sighed and apologized for yelling at me.

[A poem in Language Y]

6 minutes ago, AdamStanislav said:

Zelená je tráva

And here I found the original song on YouTube: 

 

[A poem in Language Y]

56 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I would like to see your poetic translation too please.

Oh boy. I am not much of a poet. I would definitely need some time for that. And it would probably only relate to the original in a marginal way.

But the first thing that popped to my mind when I saw that French version were the first four lines of a Czech song that was popular back when I still lived in Czechoslovakia:

Zelená je tráva,
fotbal to je hra.
A ten míč kulatý
věc je záludná.

It is actually about what is called soccer in the US and football in the UK and many other countries. Only the first word in the first verse is the name of a color.

Green is the grass,
football, what a game!
The ball, oh so round,
shall put you to shame.

Not a literal translation, but it captures the idea.

[A poem in Language Y]

42 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Esperanto uses a g for a hard g and a ĝ for a soft g.

What does a soft g sound like? I am aware of three different languages that have a different idea of what it should sound like. The Magyars pronounce it as what in Slovak is ď (they even use it in the name of their own language), the Italians as what in Slovak is dž, and the French as what in Slovak is ž (at least I think that is how they pronounce it).

How do Slovaks pronounce soft g? We don’t even have a concept of a soft g. G is a guttural sound, not sure how to soften it. If anything, we might pronounce it as K at the end of a sentence, but I don’t think we would call that soft.

[Poem in my language]

2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

But are they?

Well, in my version they are. Actually, the Slovak word blúďme is the imperative first person plural of blúdiť, which the online Slovak-English dictionary lists as meaning

- meander 
- ramble 
- roam 
- rove 
- saunter 
- schloomp 
- stray 
- vagabond 
- wander 
- bat around 
- drag tail 
- to meander 
- to stray 
- to wander 
- volatilise 
- wandering around 

Though the main meaning is moving around aimlessly.

[A poem in Language Y]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

La couleur est noire.
La couleur est blanche.

La couleur est noire.
La couleur est blanche.

La couleur est noire.
La couleur est blanche.
La couleur est rouge.

La couleur est noire.
La couleur est blanche.
La couleur est rouge.
La couleur est turquoise.

La couleur est noire.
La couleur est blanche.
La couleur est rouge.
La couleur est verte.
La couleur est bleue.

 

William

 

Do you want a poetic translation or just word for word? If you just want word for word, I will skip any repetitions and go to the last two stanzas (or whatever they are called in English):

Farba je čierna.
Farba je biela.
Farba je červená.
Farba je tyrkysová

Farba je čierna.
Farba je biela.
Farba je červená.
Farba je zelená.
Farba je modrá.

That is from the French you showed.

[Poem in my language]

Just now, Alfred said:

There’s also Bing Microsoft Translator and Yandex Translate.

Wow, live and learn. Thanks, I appreciate it.

[Poem in my language]

6 hours ago, William Overington said:

I have tried to work out which song, but I have not yet got a result.

Interesting. I think that is good because it confirms my lyrics as being more than a translation but an actual original poem about two strangers at night.

[Poem in my language]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Here is the translation from DeepL

Thanks. I have never heard of DeepL, so it is nice to have an alternative to Google. 

[Poem in my language]

6 hours ago, Ali said:

To wonder and to wander are two completely different

Oops, sorry. The strangers are wandering in the night.

[Poem in my language]

Wow, I have just run my text through Google translate, and it gave me a nice poetic translation. Here is the original in plain text:

Spolu blúďme tmou,
kým sme tu sami.
Nočnou hodinou,
dvaja neznámi.
V tento tichý čas
chcem navždy ľúbiť vás!

Mesiac svieti nám
na cestu pod hviezdami.
Nikto nie je sám,
on je tu stále s nami.
Jeho bledý jas,
i váš tichý hlas,
dávajú mi vidieť jasne,
že budeme žiť vždy šťastne.

Spolu blúďme tmou,
kým sme tu sami.
Nočnou hodinou,
dvaja neznámi.
V tento tichý čas
smiem navždy ľúbiť vás.

And here is Google’s translation:

Let's wander the darkness together,
while we are here alone.
At night,
two unknowns.
In this quiet time
I want to love you forever!

The moon shines on us
on a journey under the stars.
No one is alone
he is still here with us.
Its pale brightness,
even your quiet voice,
they make me see clearly
that we will always live happily ever after.

Let's wander the darkness together,
while we are here alone.
At night,
two unknowns.
In this quiet time
may i love you forever. 

[Capitalization affecting a Poem in my language]

Well, it is here now: 

 

[Poem in my language]

Since we are posting poems lately, here is one I wrote about half a century ago (in my twenties). It is a Slovak translation of a famous American song. I submitted it to the CEO of the then only Slovak music publishing company. He happened to be my older brother. He liked my version but said that unfortunately the song had already been recorded in Slovak years earlier with different lyrics (obviously). I said, so what? But he insisted it would not work.

Years later he told me he did get my version recorded but had to pretend it was his lyrics because by then I had fled from Communist Czechoslovakia and so the government would never allow any of my work published.

Anyway, here it is as done in Affinity Designer:

If I should translate it back into English, though literally from my text, I am sure you will know which song it was. I cannot give you the original for copyright reasons, but the translation of my version should be fine:

Together wondering in the dark,
while we are alone
In the night hour,
two strangers.
In this quiet time,
I want to love you forever.

The Moon shines for us,
on the path beneath the stars.
No one is alone,
he is always with us.
His pale shine,
and your soft voice,
make me see clearly,
that we will live always happy.

Together wondering in the dark,
while we are alone
In the night hour,
two strangers.
In this quiet time,
I may love you forever.

[Capitalization affecting a Poem in my language]

3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

There is a setting for Capitalization in the Preferences, uncheck it like in this screenshot

But it was not a new sentence, only a new line. At any rate, @John Rostron had the right idea. Thanks anyway, though.

[Capitalization affecting a Poem in my language]

7 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

Try using a line break (shift-Enter I think!) instead.

Thanks. I have to go now, but when I come back, I will try that.

[Capitalization affecting a Poem in my language]

I should add that when I clicked on Minion for the font, it decided to give me Minerva instead.

[Capitalization affecting a Poem in my language]

I just tried to write a poem in Slovak using Affinity Publisher. I gave up after several lines, when the software insisted in changing the first letter of each line into a capital letter. What on Earth?!

[Small Look-Up Table(s)]

We can also change orazur in the spirit of a chiaroscuro woodcut. This turns out fairly hard because the result depends highly on the original image, so whichever way I adjusted it, it looked great with some images and quite bad with others. But eventually I came up with a happy medium in Chiaroscuro.cube.