Middle Dutch transl. Q. Difficulty: moderate-hard (babelfishers, do not apply)

Factual Questions
1

Ok, I’ve run into a phrase, ordering someone to so something physically. 16th century, probably around Utrecht.
In context: “Nu leeset X pater noster ende gaet te rugge, soe veer alstu mogeste leesen een ave maria, ende denke, hoe xpristus weder genc na den iersten gebede tot sinen iongeren; so ganc du oec ende. . .”

Now aside from a lack of punctuation and the great 16th c spelling. . . ‘gaan te rugge’. This isn’t still in use is it? Walk backwards? (or just walk back? The end of the section suggests that to me-- I think the reader is to follow the model) Fall supine? Any thoughts?

2

I don’t even think that’s Dutch. There’s this great translation resource and it gives

Have you considered that it’s actually a cipher? I tried a few things I picked up in Digital Fortress and came up with

Made you look! =) I know a guy who speaks Dutch, I’ll forward this to him and see if he has any input.

3

I’m not fluent in Dutch, but I think it’s a penance being handed out by a priest at confession.

Now read 10 Pater Nosters and go back [don’t understand] you must/should/may also read one Ave Maria and think how Christ* [something] gave his first command to his disciples; [something something ] and…

“xp” greek letters Chi Rho.

4

If it get’s any older you can’t call it dutch anymore :slight_smile:

Now read 10 holy fathers and go back, as often as you want a hail mary, and think how christ again went after the first prayer to his youngers, so you go to your end.

the translation ‘gaet te rugge’ : literally it means ‘goes to back’ as in ‘backpack’. but in dutch we also use ‘terug’ which means ‘back’ as in 'he went back ’

5

As I noted above, I’m fairly sure that “iongeren”=“jongeren” = “apostles” or “disciples”.

6

I agree but I didn’t read your post before submitting.

I think I would understand it completely if I knew what ‘so ganc du oec ende’ means.

7

Yes, yes, thank you, all-- but the main problem is the ‘te rugge’ phrase-- I wasn’t sure whether it was just ‘terug’ or some other idiom. (To fill in the other mysteries, it’s instructions on how to do a set of prayers about JC in Gethsemane)
Sinjin, I liked your answer-- it gave me some ideas, so I actually recorded and played it backwards at 45 RPM and it turns out it’s a recipe for low-cal hollandaise.

8

Pretty cool considering it is a french sauce

9

Ah, and Librarian, I truncated it-- ende. . .[‘so you go back, too, AND go say this other prayer’].

10

Ok, and sorry to multipost, can we work on this ‘gaan te rugge’ a bit more-- as a Dutch native does it suggest “go back”, “walk backwards”, “get on your back” or what? You suggest simple 'go back", right? Thanks!

11

yup; ‘go back’

12

“terug” is “back” in Afrikaans, too. “gaan terug” would be “go back” here, but it often gets dialectalized/accented to “gaat” rather than “gaan”

“oec” would probably be “ook” in Afrikaans, and means “also”