Mucho apologies for asking a personal question. I recall there were some Spanish translators here before. I received this email in Spanish and was wondering if some kind soul could translate it. I sure hope the content isn't embarrassing. Again, sorry this is so off topic!

Saludos de Xalapa--tierra de los volovanes y a su mecha. es casi impertinente repetirme mucho, como lo haria julio cortazar en rayuela, asi que repitamos, n'est-ce-pas? dada las circunstancias actuales, y por consecuencia, creemos imperante a informarles a todos que atahualpa y karawama se encuentran en oceanica re-cuperandose, lo que facilita el trabajo de los ellos para recuperar el no-venustiano. seamos prudentes. echemosnos un cake y limpiaos de tales malabares copihue y barney--el mal del sigle venidero--ya ausentes de nuestras vidas plenipotentes. comamos chilatole de panza y a huacarrear en las calles de la urbe. vayamos jubilosos. escriben a cornucopia revista de arte y literatura. a peticion del interesado para los fines que le convengan. un saludo mutis.

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.thanks), September 21, 1999

Answers

No, we don't speak anything other than American here, and please keep this damn gibberish off this forum!!!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 21, 1999.

KOS. For Spanish royalty, you seem to be amazingly deficent in deciphering espanol. My Spanish is a bit rusty, but I think they want to know if you like to mud wrestle.

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

Here's the answer, as mangled by Babelfish hope this makes some kind of sense to you.

Greetings of Xalapa -- earth of volovanes and to its wick. he is almost impertinent to repeat to me much, like haria July to cortazar in rayuela, asi that we repeat, n'est-cEc-pas? given the present circumstances, and by consequence, we create prevailing to inform to them all which atahualpa and karawama are in oceanica recovering, which facilitates the work of they to recover no-venustiano. we are prudent echemosnos cake and limpiaos of such malabares copihue and barney -- badly of sigle coming -- already absent of our lives plenipotentes. we eat chilatole of belly and to huacarrear in the streets of the large city we go jubilant write to cornucopia magazine of art and Literature. to request of the interested one for the aims that agree to him. a greeting mutis.

-- John Ainsworth (ainsje@cstone.net), September 22, 1999.

smfdoc,

KOS only speaks HIGH Spanish due his noble status, just like he only uses new mud when wrastlin', not the old recycled stuff us commoner doomers would use.

-- minority (whiteboy@U.S.A.com), September 22, 1999.

Perhaps your brain is becoming soggy from all that wet soil you're frolicking in, Spain. In point of fact, I've checked in here regularly for well over a year and recall more than one instance where Spanish translations were kindly provided. And other indo- european languages---yes, languages other than English! (gasp)--- have appeared as well! This is a world-wide forum, Sir. And as this is one of the few times I've *ever* asked a personal favor from forum regulars or readers, I kindly ask you to bug off, mud eater!

PS: No, I won't mud wrestle with you!

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.thanks), September 22, 1999.

From what I can read and its been a while since I've studied spanish. Their hurting like hell big problems down there.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), September 22, 1999.

Thank you, John, for trying. These automatic translators, well, they just don't quite cut it, do they? I mean, it seems about as perplexing now as before...perhaps even more so! Hmmm. Perhaps it's a grande Mexican joke.

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.com), September 22, 1999.

Gawd!!! This is NOT a "we translate while you wait" service! And further, there are NO problems going on in Spain, everyone is doing just GREAT!!!! Honest injun!

We are, however, just about 100 days away from potentially the greatest global disaster to ever descend upon our planet. Can we please get back to that? And do it using AMERICAN, so we can all understand what the hell is being said? It helps a lot when you are on a DISCUSSION FORUM when everyone is DISCUSSING stuff using the same damn LANGUAGE!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

KOS,

You're forgetting this is the "World-Wide" Web. You, of all people! Be nice and go start a mud-wrestling thread.

I think ET is pretty close. Know Spanish only vaquely but sounds like they may be soliciting donations to recover from dire circumstances.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 22, 1999.

KING... stop it! Your prejudices are showing. (And they ain't pretty).

Not a Spanish speaker,

Need to tackle it in the morning with my *very* rusty spanish and a dictionary. Taz and Gayla, as I recall, are much more proficient. (Hope they get here before I wake up!)

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 22, 1999.

Gawd, I can't believe this!!!! And where will this end???

I mean, who knows what ungodly languages are going to start cropping up? And of course, we can't be nice to one and not nice to another, right? Move over, U.N., we can have a frigging translation service, damned straight, yes indeedee.

Then the next thing you know, these foreigners will want MULTI-LINGUAL threads! Thats right, split screens showing posts in various ungodly languages. I mean, we must be sensitive to the needs of the foreign speaking community, right??? Many of the posts we get around here defy translation to anything that makes sense ANYWAY (for instance, anything that "dogs@zianet.com" posts), how can such drivel be translated into anything.???

Diane, the ramifications of what you are doing are beyond anything that you can imagine in terms of the potential damage that it will do to the overloaded greenspun site. We already get "SERVER BUSY" messages at all hours of the day and night, and even weekends. Add a bunch of foreigners and the extra overhead trying to maintain such a collossal celebration of ethnic diversity, what do you think you will get? Yeah, "ERVERSAY USYBA"!!!

This is about as good as an idea as, "Gee, you know we can save two whole bytes if we use 2-digits rather than 4-digits to represent a year!"

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

Oh, cool Diane! And thanks! I'm afraid, however, it might prove to be a joke, a joke terrible in its sarcasm. All the same, I thought it might make interesting work for those scholars who, restless on a Tuesday evening, would welcome a chance to whet their Spanish on a stone of mysterious prose.

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.com), September 22, 1999.

Not a Spanish speaker,

My eyes are crossing now so it's time to sleep.

KOS,

I'm a citizen of the world... first... then U.S. second. Traveled extensively, overseas, starting at age 9. Also taught school briefly in Mexico, long ago, and have an extreme appreciation for the "cultura" and the kindness of *most* the people.

Travel broadens your perspectives, understandings and your tolerance. Try some different mud, for a change, KOS. You might *gasp* meet new friends!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 22, 1999.

No hablo espanol...

However, there are a few PC programs out there that do a good job of converting between languages (quite a few), and they do a pretty good job. Try CompUSA.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), September 22, 1999.

I think AltaVista wrote the original letter in espanol. I don't really understand it. It appears to be metaphors, ie we look into the mouth of the volcano once more and their two leaders are recovering elsewhere. The need food and they are good people. But I don't know who they are or what they are doing. Haven't pulled the dictionary out to try and translate this. But I think I would just ignore the whole thing. Suspect its all some hoax of somesort, but don't know why the person recieved this message. Is he asscociated with some missionary field? Is it really Spanish or is it some other language like Portugese or a dialect, such as out of the Yucatan area? I don't have a clue. Taz

-- Taz (Taz@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

Le Roi de L'espagne a de la boue entre les oreilles aujourd'hui!

Ah les rois! Ills sont tous pareille! A bas les rois!

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 22, 1999.

Taz, this seems one heck of a dialect, it has spanish, portuguese, italian and french mixed in.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 22, 1999.

Yeah, its what some over here just refer to as "Europeon". Like Latin, its best ignored.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 22, 1999.

Well. Thank you all for your kind input. Chris, thanks for letting me know it contained Italian and Portugese as well. There even appears to be a Japanese word (karawama). Clearly, only a crack linguist could decipher the meaning (if indeed there is a meaning).

Note the word "dada" in the text. I think that about sums it up!

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.com), September 22, 1999.

"dada" means "given" (in the feminine form). The whole thing rambles fairly aimlessly, in my book. And I did look in my diccionario GRANDE. Lots of the words don't exist in this dictionary, and many more are very unusual (at least I've never heard them), but they are listed in the Dictionary.

I'd like to know where this came from. I enjoy translating stuff, if it isn't gibberish. There are lots of non-sentences, lots of strange phrases, and so forth.

King of Spain, do you even know that most of America speaks Spanish, not "American"? Jeees.

Al

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), September 28, 1999.

Loads of balloney from the peanut gallery, but none of you ultra- helpful concerned citizens has managed any kind of attempt at a translation (other than the automated one above) of the passage for your fellow human being in need . . tsk tsk.

Here we go . . (this would be better translated by someone in Mexico who may have a better idea of the local references, and, being a Spanish speaker, not a mexican speaker, this is the best I can do.)

Saludos de Xalapa--tierra de los volovanes y a su mecha. es casi impertinente repetirme mucho, como lo haria julio cortazar en rayuela, asi que repitamos, n'est-ce-pas? dada las circunstancias actuales, y por consecuencia, creemos imperante a informarles a todos que atahualpa y karawama se encuentran en oceanica re-cuperandose, lo que facilita el trabajo de los ellos para recuperar el no-venustiano. seamos prudentes. echemosnos un cake y limpiaos de tales malabares copihue y barney--el mal del sigle venidero--ya ausentes de nuestras vidas plenipotentes. comamos chilatole de panza y a huacarrear en las calles de la urbe. vayamos jubilosos. escriben a cornucopia revista de arte y literatura. a peticion del interesado para los fines que le convengan. un saludo mutis.

Greetings from Xalapa (Mexico - capital of Veracruz)-- Land of the "vol-au-vents" (a kind of small pastry pie) and that sort of thing. It would almost be rude to repeat myself much, as Julio Cortazar (Argentinian author, born 1914) did in "Rayuela" (a novel, translates roughly to "hopscotch"), so lets repeat ourselves shall we ? Given the actual circumstances, and because of them, we believe that it is vitally important to let you all know that Atahualpa (an unusual name, possibly still used in Peru, notably the name of the favourite son of Peruvian Inca king Huayna Capac, born 1500) and Karawama (also a Peruvian name ?) find themselves in Oceania, recovering, as the non-venustiano (possible reference to Venustiano Carranza, first governor of Coahuila, in post-revolutionary Mexico) made easier for them. We are being careful. We ate some "Cake" (S.American equivalent) and, freed from the confusion of Copihue (possible reference to a popular tourist hostal close to Santiago de Chile)and Barney (could be the purple dinosaur)-- the worst of the coming century -- now that we are apart from our busy lives. We ate "Chilatole de Panza" (popular traditional Mexican dish originating in oaxaqueqa), and carried everything around the streets of the town. We walked around happily. They write every kind of artistic and literary magazine, for the benefit of anyone interested. A mute greeting.

Dont ask me what they mean, but thats what they say. :)

W

-- W0lv3r1n3 (W0lv3r1n3@yahoo.com), September 28, 1999.

W,

Thank you very much for your superb translation of this postcard from Mexico, particularly for the historical and cultural insight into the proper nouns. I seem to recall that you sometimes reside in Spain. I very much appreciate your expertise!

Al,

I'm glad there are people out there who enjoy translating Spanish. You asked where this originated: the author is a composer of classical music residing in Xalapa. My reference to "dada" was meant to recall the art movement that flourished in Europe from 1916- 20. "Dada" artists celebrated and employed deliberate irrationality and anarchism---much like some of the contributors to this forum!

-- Not a Spanish speaker (thanks@thanks.com), September 28, 1999.

Not a S s,

Do you like to needlepoint?

-- flora (***@__._), September 28, 1999.

W, I'm glad somebody took the time to translate that. I understood enough of it to know that it was going to come out pretty weird. Which it did, in my opinion.

On the other hand, maybe a poet would understand it. I often get really lost trying to understand some poetry...

Al

Cuando casi nada que esta escrito tiene razon, lo tiro en la basura.

King of Spain, you still don't get it--this is not an "Uhmericun" forum. It is on the bloody INTERNET, for chrissake. If "foreigners" bug you so much, don't read their writings. No one is forcing you to.

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), September 28, 1999.