gattupardu

I understand some of the siclian's dialects and those from southern Calabria but here is one sentence i can't understand :

"a mia m'andi passari janchi e niri".

janchi : white
niri : black

in french, does that means : "je passe du blanc ou noir" or "je peux passer du blanc au noir" ??
in english : "i become black from white" (i know it makes no sense).

maybe "white" means "peace and quiet" and "black" means "anger" in that sentence.

i'd like to know what you think about it.

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Lina

Je sais que le sicilien n'est pas de l'italien, mais je pense qu'il vaut mieux que ce message soit ici, plutôt que dans le forum "Other languages", si tu veux avoir plus de chances de réponse.

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gattupardu

non c'è problema, grazie super M.

e bene ricordare, secondo ringraziamento

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gattupardu

nessuno mi può aiutare ?

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sflor

Hi there!

While reading your post and I must confess that I don´t have any knowledge in Italian dialects... except my Latin studies I would say that sentence has another meaning in my opinion...

I just remembered a saying in my native language which can be translated as "It's better to change from donkey to horse than from horse into donkey". By reading your translation in English and French I would say that "white" means intelligence and "black" means lack of intelligence.

I might be wrong, but it is only the way I would interpret that sentence.

Regards,

sflor

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gattupardu

thanks for your opinion.
can you translate this from English to Portuguese, please ?

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sflor

Yes, sure:

"É melhor passar de burro para cavalo do que de cavalo para burro". To help you a little more: cavalo ("cavallo") it´s close to Italian even in sounds, and burro ("asino") the litteral translation into Italian...

So, given that Portuguese saying :

"cavalo" represents an intelligent person and,

"burro" would represent an "imbecil" or "idiota" person

This is one of the examples that can be explained by that saying.

Hope it helps you.

Regards,

sflor

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From small beginnings come great things.