Postcard in Translation

April 14, 2007 11:19 PM

OldPostcardFilter: Help me translate an old postcard purchased in Muggia, Italy.

Knowing that I like old sent postcards, my girlfriend bought this one for me in Muggia, Italy, at an outdoor market. I think it's in Italian, but I'm not sure.

It's postmarked January 29, 1971 and signed simply "Stanko". On the front of the postcard is a picture of the Grand Canal in Trieste. Although I'm sure it's something relatively banal, I'm curious to know what Stanko actually wrote to Adrijena(?).

posted by Dalton to grab bag (12 answers total)

It's something Slavic, not Italian.
posted by zadcat at 11:23 PM on April 14, 2007

Wow. I can't make heads or tails of it. The writing is tough to read and it's not Italian. My guess would be that it's Ladin or possibly Slovenian, given that Trieste is right on the border. Languagehat is a regular poster here, so maybe he'll be able to help us out. Also, his blog rocks.
posted by charlesv at 11:30 PM on April 14, 2007

Googling some of the words that I could decipher brings up mainly slovenian websites, so charlesv seems to be right in his second guess. Can8217;t help further than that though.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 11:47 PM on April 14, 2007

Yikes! Sorry about that. *turns off smart firefox*
posted by ClarissaWAM at 11:49 PM on April 14, 2007

Definitely slavic. Possibly Serbo-Croatian...?
posted by miss lynnster at 12:03 AM on April 15, 2007

slovenian. not greek, or russian.
posted by phaedon at 12:39 AM on April 15, 2007

Is Czech out of the question? I ask because of the ř, which as I understand it is a pretty unique letter.
posted by Deathalicious at 3:14 AM on April 15, 2007

Never mind. Looks like it's a ž
posted by Deathalicious at 3:16 AM on April 15, 2007

It's Slovenian.
"Draga Adrijana! Verjetno bomo prišli prej mi ali ti vseeno pošljem to razglednico, da vidiš da ne pozabimo nate. Zelo me zanima kaj nama boš povedala novega v nedeljo v zvezi z zdravjem seveda. Trdno upamo in ti želimo iz vsega srca da bi bilo vse prav. Z nami pride tudi Alenka, se bomo počakali na Kozini je bil danes Slavček tukaj. Lepe pozdrave in poljube ti pošilja mama"

The second-to-last sentence isn't really coherent, or I haven't deciphered it properly. But here's what it says (in a very bad, rather literal translation, because I'm not a good translator):
Dear Adrijana! We'll probably arrive before [the postcard], but I'm sending you this card anyway, so you see we don't forget you. I'm very interested in what news you'll tell us on Sunday, about the health of course. We sincerely hope and wish you from the bottom of our hearts that everything will be well. Alenka will come with us, too, we'll wait for each other at Kozina, Slavček was here today. Greetings and kisses from your Mom.

My guess is this is a family of ethnic Slovenians living in Italy, near the border (Kozina is the name of the local border crossing near Trieste). There is a rather large Slovenian minority living there. "Slavček" is a variant of the name "Slavko", who you say signed the card, so maybe he posted it for Adrijana's mother.
posted by gakiko at 10:39 AM on April 15, 2007

Hive Mind 1
Rest of Internet 0
posted by phaedon at 11:41 AM on April 15, 2007

Thank you, Gakiko. AskMetafilter never ceases to amaze me.
posted by Dalton at 11:52 AM on April 15, 2007

Glad to be of assistance! :)
posted by gakiko at 5:15 PM on April 15, 2007