My family comes from the north of Sweden and spoke meänkieli. I got this notebook that my grandfather’s brother wrote when he was fifteen, and would really appreciate if someone could translate some of it.
The only thing I know about him is that he and his brother were both disabled with polio (I think?), and lived in their parents house their whole lives.
Thanks in advance, kiitos paljon!
They are poems. The first one is about a beautiful flower. Which could refer to a girl too. I’ll try to remember to translate them tomorrow.
Poems or lyrics on finnish. Google Lens can find some words from that and translates it somehow. Last words are:
Goodbye my motherland,
goodbye my darling
and my beloved parents
and my tender sisters,
Ölve Soppers den 4 Maj 1928
Songs. Nostalgic, and maybe sad songs. First is called just “Song” and has 22 stanzas, atleast starting with pinings of beautiful meadow flower.
Second seems smudged by tears, or other moisture maybe, though waxing mentions of “mother” and “Beautiful Sweden” might suggest somber feeling. Maybe reason why he switched from pencil to ink.
Title of last song straight seems to tell that he felt homesick.
This from eyeing here and there, since I don’t have the moment to go through all those pages, but atleast your great uncle was deskdrawer poet/songwriter.
Poetry, and it’s beautiful.
They are songs and verses are spread between numbers.
First one is about a flower that is used as metaphor of a woman since song describes it smiling to him. First song takes quite somber turn in verse 4, before that it’s about how happy he was with the “flower”.
Picture 7 is another song, roughly translated title would be “travelling boys song”.
Picture 10 is another song start “Home memories song”.
picture 1,12 and 14 the title is just “Song”.
He may have had hobby of writing songs as ThePettytion mentioned earlier.
12/16 seems to be the lyrics of a rather known folk song ”Sä kasvoit neito kaunoinen”, at least the three first verses. I don’t recognise the others, I guess a lot of it can be his own creation. The handwriting is quite hard to decipher on some of the pages so I didn’t spend too much time trying, though. For what I can tell it’s written in pretty standard Finnish (of that era).
Yup, We leared to write like this still in mid 80’s..
first one is a poem/verses about a delicate, fragile flower/girl. Written in sort of personal way about not being there for her and sadly losing her to another eventually. Mentioning Sweden being the dear country where he was born and stuff about being on sea. Very hard to read and some parts which are nearly unreadable.
9 comments
My family comes from the north of Sweden and spoke meänkieli. I got this notebook that my grandfather’s brother wrote when he was fifteen, and would really appreciate if someone could translate some of it.
The only thing I know about him is that he and his brother were both disabled with polio (I think?), and lived in their parents house their whole lives.
Thanks in advance, kiitos paljon!
They are poems. The first one is about a beautiful flower. Which could refer to a girl too. I’ll try to remember to translate them tomorrow.
Probably contemporary erotica. Kukkia & mehiläisiä.
Poems or lyrics on finnish. Google Lens can find some words from that and translates it somehow. Last words are:
Goodbye my motherland,
goodbye my darling
and my beloved parents
and my tender sisters,
Ölve Soppers den 4 Maj 1928
Songs. Nostalgic, and maybe sad songs. First is called just “Song” and has 22 stanzas, atleast starting with pinings of beautiful meadow flower.
Second seems smudged by tears, or other moisture maybe, though waxing mentions of “mother” and “Beautiful Sweden” might suggest somber feeling. Maybe reason why he switched from pencil to ink.
Title of last song straight seems to tell that he felt homesick.
This from eyeing here and there, since I don’t have the moment to go through all those pages, but atleast your great uncle was deskdrawer poet/songwriter.
Poetry, and it’s beautiful.
They are songs and verses are spread between numbers.
First one is about a flower that is used as metaphor of a woman since song describes it smiling to him. First song takes quite somber turn in verse 4, before that it’s about how happy he was with the “flower”.
Picture 7 is another song, roughly translated title would be “travelling boys song”.
Picture 10 is another song start “Home memories song”.
picture 1,12 and 14 the title is just “Song”.
He may have had hobby of writing songs as ThePettytion mentioned earlier.
12/16 seems to be the lyrics of a rather known folk song ”Sä kasvoit neito kaunoinen”, at least the three first verses. I don’t recognise the others, I guess a lot of it can be his own creation. The handwriting is quite hard to decipher on some of the pages so I didn’t spend too much time trying, though. For what I can tell it’s written in pretty standard Finnish (of that era).
Yup, We leared to write like this still in mid 80’s..
first one is a poem/verses about a delicate, fragile flower/girl. Written in sort of personal way about not being there for her and sadly losing her to another eventually. Mentioning Sweden being the dear country where he was born and stuff about being on sea. Very hard to read and some parts which are nearly unreadable.