How do I translate "Bavarian Hiasl"?

May 3, 2009 1:46 PM

Translating from a Bavarian Legend - what is a Hiesel/Hiesl/Hiasl?

I've been working on identifying a drawing in the small museum here at my university, and I've concluded that it's a picture of the ghost of Matthias Klostermayer, the "Bavarian Hiasl" appearing to a poacher. Here's a link. I've found some good German biographies of Klostermayer, but what I haven't found is a translation for his title. Anyone know what a Hiesel or Hiasl or Hiesl is? Many thanks for any input!

posted by RedReplicant to writing & language (7 comments total)

Is it possible that Hiasl is a common name? There's a chimpanzee with the name currently in Austria, at least. I found this by just Googling "Hiasl", and it looks like other people have the name, also.

Of course, that doesn't preclude it's meaning "Robin" or "Duke" or something.
posted by amtho at 1:57 PM on May 3

Well, Matthias Klostermayer is the Hiasl's name, and Hiasl in the literature is referred to as more of a title, like "The Hiasl." It doesn't seem to derive from his proper name as far as I can tell.
posted by RedReplicant at 2:00 PM on May 3

I think it is his name, yes. On this website, for instance, they seem to be referring to Hiasl as his name. The French Wikipedia indicates it means something like "Little Matthias". Google Books has a source to confirm that.

By the way, Germans can probably explain this much better than I can, but I think it's pretty common to refer to people as 'der ..' (or die), followed by a given name. That's where your idea of 'The Hiasl' might come from.
posted by Ms. Next at 2:03 PM on May 3

You know, I think you are correct. I wasn't thinking of shortening his name to the end, but if it's MattHIAS, and Hiasl for short, it sort of makes sense.
posted by RedReplicant at 2:10 PM on May 3

Yes, it's common to refer to persons by article plus name in Germany. Perhaps it is a little more common in the south, where one - if one doesn't remember a name while talking - would even say "der Ding, der wie hoaster auch wieder" (The Thing, the what's his name again) or something similar.
The spelling differences in your example come from different mixed usage and phonetic spelling. Hiesel: official German way of writing such an ending. Hiesl: South-German or Austrian ending (like Joseph Haydn instead of Hayden), Hiasl: phonetic dialect version.
Btw I didn't know it was the diminutive of Matthias - always something to learn.
posted by Namlit at 2:50 PM on May 3

The -l ending is a diminutive in certain dialects of German (presumably coming from a shortening of -lein). So this is in line with the idea of Hiasl being a nickname of Matthias.
posted by kosmonaut at 2:52 PM on May 3

In this case I guess it's, as suggested, just the bavarian short version of Matthias.

But actually "hiasl" can also, especially in "so a hiasl" ("such a hiasl"), mean something like "clumsy fellow" or "shlemihl", in a pretty friendly way.
posted by dnial at 4:04 PM on May 3