{"id":3888,"date":"2018-04-20T10:02:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T08:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/?p=3888"},"modified":"2018-04-20T18:55:38","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T16:55:38","slug":"the-dhamma-in-ones-own-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/2018\/04\/20\/the-dhamma-in-ones-own-language\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dhamma in one&#8217;s own language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<h3>The metta sutta in Saarland: Es Metta-Sutta<\/h3>\n<p>Was de Buddha iwwer die Liebe gesad hat<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Das do soll ma mache,<br \/>\nwemma verstann hat, was gudd is,<br \/>\nun wemma de W\u00e4\u00e4 zum Friede kennt:<br \/>\nMa soll wisse, wie ma ebbes anpackt, un soll offrichtig sin,<br \/>\nsoll grad eraus und sanft schw\u00e4tze,<br \/>\nsoll bescheiden sin un net engebillt,<br \/>\nzufriede un leicht froh se mache,<br \/>\nsoll sich net zuviel Pflichte offlade un von gen\u00fcgsamer Art sin.<br \/>\nFriedlich un ruhig soll ma sin, un weise un geschickt,<br \/>\nnet stolz oder fordernd.<br \/>\nMa soll aach net es Kl\u00e4nschde mache,<br \/>\nwas weise Mensche tadele w\u00fcrde.<br \/>\nMa soll w\u00fcnsche: Froh un in Sicherheit solle se sin\u2015<br \/>\ndass doch alle L\u00e4wewese glicklich w\u00e4re!<br \/>\nWas es aach fer L\u00e4wewese g\u00e4bt:<br \/>\nOb se stark sin oder schwach, kens werd ausgelosst,<br \/>\ndie gro\u00dfe un m\u00e4chdische, die mittlere, die korze oder kl\u00e4ne,<br \/>\ndie wo ma sien kann un die unsichtbare,<br \/>\ndie wo nah un die wo weit ewegg l\u00e4we,<br \/>\ndie wo schon gebor sin un die wo of e Geburt zusteiere\u2015<br \/>\ndass doch alle L\u00e4wewese glicklich w\u00e4re!<br \/>\nNimmand soll jemand anneres hinergehn<br \/>\noder irgend e L\u00e4wewese in irgend \u00e4nem Zustand verachde.<br \/>\nNimmand soll aus \u00c4rjer oder Unwille<br \/>\nannere Schade w\u00fcnsche.<br \/>\nSo wie e Mudder ihr Kind,<br \/>\nihr \u00e4nzisches Kind mit ihrem L\u00e4we besch\u00fctzt,<br \/>\nso soll ma mit eme grenzelose Herz<br \/>\nalle L\u00e4wewese umfasse;<br \/>\nma soll Freindlichk\u00e4t iwwer die ganz Welt ausstrahle:<br \/>\nno owwe zum Himmel,<br \/>\nno unne in die Tiefe,<br \/>\nun ganz ronderum ohne Grenze,<br \/>\nfrei von Hass oder Unwille.<br \/>\nOb ma steht oder geht, sitzt oder leit,<br \/>\nsolang ma net schl\u00e4frig is,<br \/>\nsoll ma das in Erinnerung behalle.<br \/>\nEs heischt, das w\u00e4r e erhabenes L\u00e4we.<br \/>\nWemma sich net an falsche Vorstellunge klammert,<br \/>\ne reines Herz hat un klar sieht,<br \/>\nwemma dezu von sinnlichem Verlange frei is,<br \/>\nwerd ma nimmeh in der do Welt gebor.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014Sutta Nipata 1.8<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Doing this translation had some unexpected effect on me: I really felt the text is resonating with me on a much deeper level than in any other language I\u2019ve read it in so far. Saarland has been my very first language, my mother tongue, what I\u2019ve grown up with. And it resonates much deeper with the emotional part of my being than anything else. Reading my translation out loud I felt this is the way to naturally understand its meaning. And so I can most deeply appreciate why the Buddha encouraged people to learn the Dhamma in their own language!<\/p>\n<p>Therefore: Thank you so much, Venerable @Vimala, for this suggestion!*<\/p>\n<p><em>(*This translation was made in reply to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/discourse.suttacentral.net\/t\/metta-sutta-translation-challenge\/9216?u=sabbamitta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this challenge<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Saarland is actually a spoken language, not a written one. As soon as we go to school and start writing, the very first thing they try to teach us is real, \u2018proper\u2019 German&#8212;I say \u2018try\u2019, because hardly any Saarlander manages to learn proper German ever in their lives. Even Erich Honecker, head of state of the GDR, was always recognizable as a Saarlander by his pronunciation (not that he\u2019s one we\u2019ve been particularly proud of\u2026 ).<\/p>\n<p>As it is a spoken language there is no official orthography for Saarland. Actually there are a number of authors who started writing in this language over the last decades; but the first texts published were mostly joke texts, like little booklets describing all the peculiarities of the language that seem strange or funny to other Germans. But there are also some more serious writers, probably not taken all too seriously by the audience, that is to say there&#8217;s a limited number of readers. I also didn\u2019t keep track with what they\u2019ve published, so I don\u2019t know whether or not there is some agreement as to orthography.<\/p>\n<p>Given this background, translating the metta sutta into Saarland has been quite a challenge. Especially I had to get over the idea that I\u2019m going to translate into a joke language. As some authors who write joke books in Saarland seem to compete for making up the weirdest kinds of spelling (so that it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out how a word should be pronounced), I tried to make some compromises between capturing every nuance in the differences in pronunciation between German and Saarland and keeping the text readable.<\/p>\n<p>Doing this work sheds a completely new light on this my mother tongue: Usually it has kind of the taste of not being fit for those things that really matter in life; that it\u2019s just for jokes and children\u2019s stuff. Having made a translation of the metta sutta in Saarland now gives the language a new value for me, makes it more meaningful. When reading my translation out loud there occurred the thought that with this even my mother might be able to catch a little glimpse of the Dhamma\u2026 who knows!<\/p>\n<p>May this translation be beneficial to many beings!<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m still adding an audio file for the pronunciation:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3888-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/metta-saar.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/metta-saar.mp3\">https:\/\/www.samita.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/metta-saar.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><em>(By Anagarika Sabbamitta)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The metta sutta in Saarland: Es Metta-Sutta Was de Buddha iwwer die Liebe gesad hat Das do soll ma mache, wemma verstann hat, was gudd is, un wemma de W\u00e4\u00e4 zum Friede kennt: Ma soll wisse, wie ma ebbes anpackt,&#8230;<br \/><a class=\"read-more-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/2018\/04\/20\/the-dhamma-in-ones-own-language\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3888"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3941,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3888\/revisions\/3941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samita.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}