Dear Kerry and Bill do you believe everything?

[King Lear]

Originally Posted by cpl1516

It's not being a smartass to share what you know about Swiss German.

According to a German friend here, and others, Billy's German is not any usual form of German, but a kind of uneducated/self-educated form. Of course, Germans can read and understand it, but it's a bit unusual, isn't it? In the sense that an English country farmer's English is a bit unusual from a non-English person's perspective, even when written.

We can overcome that he speaks a kind of rural-"uneducated" variance of German - yes.
For example he uses old-fashioned words like "Gemüt" which no German under 50 uses anymore.

But the written word he uses is standard High-German.

Originally Posted by cpl1516

The folks doing the translations from German to English who really brought this to notice are the Gaiaguys duo, Dyson and Vivienne. If I get time I'll try and find their original post on it, if you are not familiar with their Figu forum posts already (a search there will probably bring it up under Translations thread).

No, I'm not familiar with this.
And yes, you are right, translation work isn't so easy, even on two so much related languages (germanic and Indo-European) - but some words are pretty clear.

Originally Posted by cpl1516

Figu folks would like to be able to check with Billy that the German word/s they have in each instance is correct and what he intended. I'm not holding my breath while they get around to that considering there is so much new material still left unpublished and literally thousands of pages waiting their first translation into English, and that Billy is in weakened health and now an aged man.

A few days ago I saw a lecture of a FIGU member in America, probably Billy's proxy, together with Wendelle Stevens and another guy.
And my impression was that the Swiss proxy, who hold his lecture in English, did not really understand/speak the English languge good enough.
That was pretty clear when the audience started to ask questions to the panel.

And he (the Swiss proxy) also told the audience about the translation problems, that almost every word which is translated, Billy criticises.
And by this he is right and also wrong, because some words do have several meanings but some are pretty definitive, like "Idioten", "Lügner", "Schizophrenie"....