Please help translate this email

December 24, 2005 1:00 PM

Does anybody know what this says, or at least what language it is? Stastne vianocne sviatky vrodinnom kruhu a v novom roku vela zdravia a spokojnosti praju LIZAKOVCI. My girlfriend received it in a text message from an international number, and we are both perplexed. It doesn't appear to be Polish or Russian. [posted for kyleg who has used his weekly AskMe and posted to MetaChat. The agreed possibility of the language is Slovak.]
posted by Frisbee Girl to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

Slovak?
posted by Nelson at 1:04 PM on December 24, 2005

der, you know it's Slovak. Sorry. And I thought I was so smart linking to Google searches instead of actually knowing something useful. Move along.
posted by Nelson at 1:05 PM on December 24, 2005

Slovak seems like a good guess. I know enough Czech to make out "novum roku" as new year, and remember Xmas cards that basically went vesele venoche and something new year. My best guess is something like, health, peace and happiness in the new year, or something to that effect.
posted by teddyb109 at 1:09 PM on December 24, 2005

Response by poster: Nelson, it's ok, I just realized that I wrote 'email' instead of 'text message' in page header in addition to dorking the format.

Ah, well.
posted by Frisbee Girl at 1:11 PM on December 24, 2005

You could Google the phone number or country code to see what country it's associated with. Not that that would solve it, but it might give a hint/confirm your suspicions.
posted by SuperNova at 2:27 PM on December 24, 2005

Stastne vianocne sviatky vrodinnom kruhu a v novom roku vela zdravia a spokojnosti praju LIZAKOVCI.

Happy holy night birth of the king and new year much health and calm / peaceful somethingorother (family name).

Must be Slovak, as it is almost Polish... no other Slavic language comes that close.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:49 PM on December 24, 2005

Thanks meatbomb, that sounds pretty plausible. The country code is Slovakia, so we're pretty sure on the language. Too bad we don't know enough Slovak to reply. I wonder how it got to us in the first place. There are probably enough Slovaks in Chicago (where she's from) for it to be a wrong number.
posted by kyleg at 3:22 PM on December 24, 2005

I confirm, it is indeed Slovak. The translation is:

"Merry Christmas in a circle of your family and a lot of health and contentment in new year wished to you by FAMILY NAME (plural)".

These are fairly cookie-cutter wishes. According to the tone and style of the message, it was probably sent by acquaintances or distant relatives.

There is around one million Slovaks living in US and a lot of Slovaks immigrated to Chicago in late 19th / early 20th century. So I guess you are right - it was simply a wrong number.

If you want to reply to them, I can translate a message for you. (check your mail)
posted by b. at 7:00 PM on December 24, 2005

This Online Language Identifer works very well.
posted by Sharcho at 7:51 AM on December 25, 2005