On 9 Jul 98, Rainmaker wrote:
> The most famous German foul up translation was
> President Kennedy, who, while in Berlin said "Ich bein ein
> Berliner," thinking he said "I am a Berliner." In reality he
> said I am a Jelly Donut.
Er, well, um... this is actually a bit of an urban legend, I fear. From the
soc.culture.german FAQ:
* * *
In his famous speech in Berlin, J.F. Kennedy, the president of the United States,
announced "Ich bin ein Berliner".
This is frequently (and willfully?!) misconstrued as translating to the English
phrase
"I am a jelly doughnut". While the German word "Berliner" indeed also refers to a
German bakery item, and a naive learner of the German language might be lead to
believe Kennedy thus embarrassed himself, it was actually never conceived in this
meaning by the German audience.
For a scholarly discussion, see the following journal article:
Eichhoff, Juergen; Monatshefte, **85** no 1, (1993) p. 71. "Ich
bin ein Berliner": A History and a Linguistic Clarification.
Summary: President John F. Kennedy's well-known exclamation has been often
declared to be incorrect German, causing the President to be totally misunderstood
by his audience. It is shown here why the statement, translated for Kennedy by a
native speaker of German, is the correct and the only correct way of expressing in
German what the President wanted to say. [10/95]
* * *
BTW, you can hear the actual excerpt in question in RealAudio:
http://historyplace.com/sounds/presidents/thp-ichbin.ram
...on the following page:
http://historyplace.com/specials/sounds-prez/index.html
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte: http://www.almonte.com/
Business Web site: http://www.almonte.com/brent/
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