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Micki

Αν ήταν άστρα τα φιλιά σου

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ΑΝ ΗΤΑΝ ΑΣΤΡΑ ΤΑ ΦΙΛΙΑ ΣΟΥ

Μουσική: Γιάννης Μαρκόπουλος

Στίχοι: Μάνος Ελευθερίου

Αν ήταν άστρα τα φιλιά σου

και τα 'χαν άλλοι ουρανοί

θα 'ταν αλλιώς ο κόσμος τώρα

θα 'χαν και τα πουλιά φωνή

Αν ήταν άστρα τα φιλιά σου

σ' ένα κουτί θα κλείδωνα

για να ταίζω την ψυχή μου

και τα πετροχελίδονα

Αν ήταν άστρα τα φιλιά σου

και χαμηλώναν προς τη γη

θα 'ταν αλλιώς ο κόσμος τώρα

θα 'ταν αλλιώς και η ζωή

IF THE STARS WERE YOUR KISSES

If the stars were your kisses

and if they had other skys

the world would be different now

and the birds would have a voice

If the stars were your kisses

in a box, I would lock them

to feed my soul

and the martins*

If the stars were your kisses

and come down to the earth

the world would be different now

life would be different too

*martins: I found this word in the dictionnary but I don't know what it means. Who knows please ?

and of course, any correction is welcome.

Micki

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Micki, it is exactly the same word I found in a quite reliable Greek-English dictionary (by Stavropoulos/Hornby):

το πετροχελίδονο (also: το πετροχελιδόνι) = the martin

Concerning the meaning, I quote from the Greek dictionary by Babiniotis:

"χελιδόνι που ζει σε βραχώδεις περιοχές"

=

"swallow [= a certain species of (small) birds] who lives in rocky areas"

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Yes, I had a look into my Greek/German dictionary and it says:

πετροχελιδονο = Felsenschwalbe

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That's right! It has bigger wings than the simple swallow, smaller head and too short legs. That's the reason it usually hangs on rocks or walls. It cannot sit on the ground because then it could not fly. It comes in Greece every summer from Africa.

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Thanks all, I thought something like that, analyzing the word. In my English/Dutch dictionary I didn't find a satisfying answer although it might be the same (I don't know so much about birds).

Micki

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All you didn't want to know about swallows!

I couldn't resist and went to my bird book, which, deliciously, lists theirs names not only in French and Latin, but English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Italian and Spanish as well. Not Greek, its one blemish...

Of the 5 species of Hirundinidae listed, three are called Martin in English. The Crag Martin is the likeliest:

Ptyonoprogne rupestris

Hirondelle de rochers

Crag Martin

Felsenschwalbe

Rotszwaluw

Klippsvala

Rondine montana

Avion rupestre

... περτοχελιδόνι

It is found only in Southern Europe, not normally coming North of the Alps. Even in northern Greece, it will come to live there in summer, but not to nest.

It's a very beautiful, graceful bird.

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As you may or may not remember, I posted a "print it yourself" cd-booklet for Σεργιάνι στον κόσμο a while ago, including this song. As a curiosity, I re-post my translation here:

IF YOUR KISSES WERE STARS

If your kisses were stars,

and if they had a different heaven,

the universe would be different now,

the birds too would have voices.

If your kisses were stars,

I would hide them in a box

to feed them to my soul

and to the swallows.

If your kisses were stars,

and they came lower, near the earth,

the universe would be different now,

and life would be different too.

Now I did have some help (a pretty reliable Dutch translation), but I know a lot less Greek than Micki and there are some differences, so please, you guys who do know Greek, if anyone cares to explain what's what?

Though I get the impression that sometimes, as is the way with poetry, these lyrics mean two-three things at once, and you can translate only one...

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Mijn woordenboek zei: huiszwaluw.

oops (too much wine today I guess, on the family New Year best wishes meeting)

mijn = my

woordenboek = dictionnary (not the self-written)

zei = said

huiszwaluw = houseswallow (and that sounded weird)

And of course, I was too impatient to translate this song that I didn't think of looking if it was already there or not.

Thank you Geeske.

Micki

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:D Micki, even if you had looked, would it have stopped you? I hope not - you, like Niki and me, have more than one reason to translate a song, don't you?

About the swallows... it's a completely unimportant point of course but I enjoy it...

so, the 'huiszwaluw' is the Delichon urbica in latin and House Martin in English. I might fit the description, but I think the Crag Martin is likelier. If this goes on, I'll end up with a Greek bird book pretty soon :)

It a fact that "general dictionaries" are never wholly reliable when it comes to specialist terms, like birds and plants, but also, for instance, food :)

In zoology and botany, this is where the latin names come in really useful: they are reasonnably fixed and stable, and unabiguous. Unlike the "popular" names: if you say "swallow" in English, you may mean only the swallows, or the martins as well; and in Dutch they are all called "zwaluw" anyway. And so on...

Of course the translator's approach will be different for a poem (where zoological precision will come second, and poetic truth first), or for a guidebook (where the user will want to know just which bird it is).

And of course if you happen to be a bit of a bird-watcher... you will bore the socks off everyone with useless detail! I apologize, but only a little - sensible people will have skipped this post :)

They are beautiful birds, the πετροχελίδονα.

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Compare with swedish:

Min ordbok saeger: hussvala.

Replace some letters and take away some other from the dutch sentence and you got this one. Quite close languages in some ways.

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Yes, Andreas, I agree. What you say there reminds me of a story (really, a story again).

About ten years ago, I was in Crete. One day I did an excursion. There was a couple on the bus and I found  their language so funny, like short syllables, well hard to describe but it sounded very Scandinavian. And I found it so cute. Somewhere that day, in a shop I heard the woman talking to her husband about something she wanted to buy. And guess what ?? I could hear it more clearly there. She was talking a Flemish dialect (Flemish = Dutch. In Belgium we say this to make the difference between the French in Wallonie and the Dutch in The Flanders). She was from Brugge (or Bruges). On that side of Belgium the language is really so ... euhm ununderstandable. My friends and I had to laugh about so hard. Lucky for us, she was so occupied with the thing she wanted to buy that she didn't notice that we were laughing about her.

Now, how can a remark about Swedish me make longing so hard to leave Belgium again, to the South of Europe, direction slightly to the East? "Pes mou !"

Micki

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