Eleanor Thomson

Johann Iken

Dat giv't 'n Typen in Ostfreesland de fünds't du nargens ne

De fünds't du nargens ne

Hier giv't 'n Keerl de heet bloot up linke Siet een Ohr

Up linke Siet een Ohr

Denn kommt man mit tö het Moor.

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken, äben kieken wat is hier denn loot?"

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken, kiek äben wat is hier denn loot?"

Harr, wat klau'n di düchtig vööl

doorvan maakst di bang,

Un wenn die Lüü all menging sünd doch neet normal,

Ji sünd doch neet normal,

Ji sünd doch neet normal.

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken, äben kieken wat is hier denn loot?"

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

Un wat sünd wi schlau

Wi wiesen dat bloot ni,

Dat is uns Philosophie

Wenn ander'n meenen wi wünd doch bloot een Subkultur

Nee, denn höchsten een Suufkultur,

denn höchsten een Suufkultur,

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken!"

"Johann Iken musst äben kieken, äben kieken wat is hier denn loot?"

Wi ropen "Hey!"

"Hey!"

–De Vagabunden

Johann Iken

There’s a guy from East Frisia who you’ll find nowhere else

Who you’ll find nowhere else

There’s this guy who lives here, and he has no right ear

He has no right ear

Come on, follow us to the swamp

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there!”

“Johann Iken, look over there, look, see what they’re doing there”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there”

“Johann Iken, look over there, look, what are they doing here?”

Oh god, look how drunk they are

See, now they’re so mad

And the people, you know they’re all so weird

We know you’re all so weird

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there”

“Johann Iken, look over there, look, what are they doing here?”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

And we’re all so smart

But we can’t see it

That’s our philosophy

So they say that we’re only a subculture

Maybe we’re a drunk culture

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there”

“Johann Iken, look over there, look, what are they doing here?”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

–Translated from Low German by Eleanor Thomson

Johann Iken

There’s a guy from Ostfreesland who you’ll find nowhere else

Who you’ll find nowhere else

There’s this guy who lives here, and he has no right ear

He has no right ear

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there!”

“Johann Iken, look over there, what are they doing here?”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there”

“Johann Iken, look over there, what are they doing here?”

Lord, how drunk are they?

It makes them crazy

And the people, you know they’re not normal

Y’all aren’t normal

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there!”

“Johann Iken, look over there, what are they doing here?”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

And how smart are we?

We just can’t see it

Dat is uns Philosophie

When they say that we’re only a Subkultur,

No, but maybe we’re a drunk culture

Maybe we’re a drunk culture

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Johann Iken, look over there”

“Johann Iken, look over there, what are they doing here?”

We yell “Hey!”

“Hey!”

–Translated from Low German by Eleanor Thomson

Once upon a time, German

(An erasure of my interview with Edith Buhs)

Once upon a time, German

Fluent, no.

Low German in Germany, the United States. High German.

Grandfather grew up speaking Low German with his parents. He learned English when he went to school, where he and his classmates were punished if they were caught speaking Low German at school.

Everyone was speaking English.

They were bilingual.

Immigrated from Canada and possibly spoke French.

Cleaning up things when grandma moved

Not related to our current culture.

Some small remaining German Lutheran.

The whole section of East Central Illinois was largely populated by immigrants from East Frisia. The German Lutherans were marginalized by the more dominant and numerous Polish Catholics.

Very assimilated.

Our grandparents spoke another language.

–Eleanor Thomson

Translator’s Statement

De Vagabunden is a now-inactive musical group from East Frisia, Germany that performed and made music videos for parody songs written in Low German by the group’s members, including Detlef Hoofdmann, between 1988 and 2007. Hoofdmann grew up in Osteel, East Frisia, where his parents chose not to teach him Low German, a regional language, because they felt that it was no longer useful given that Standard German was being used nearly everywhere. However, in high school, Hoofdmann’s classmates taught him Low German because they saw it as important for him to know. When he formed de Vagabunden with his brother and friends, he wrote Low German parodies of German- and English-language songs and recorded them with the band (Hoofdmann).

“Johann Iken,” being a song, has a typical song structure: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus. The verses describe some notable features of the people in East Frisia, though they’re not particularly desirable characteristics. The chorus refers to Johann Iken, a character created by the musician Hannes Flessner, to whom the song is dedicated (Hoofdmann). The verses consist of a phrase that describes East Frisia (ex. “Oh god, look how drunk they are”) followed by a portion of the phrase or an elaboration on the phrase repeating two or three times (ex. “See, now they’re so mad”). The choruses consist of a directive aimed at Johann Iken to “look over there, look, see what they’re doing there.” The song is written in an informal and silly register (Hoofdmann), with rhymes at times but not always. It shows clear love for East Frisia, but avoids being overly praising or worshipful. What it lacks in figurative language and clever turns of phrase it makes up for with energy and humor, especially when sung.

I had originally wanted to translate a Low German poem, as this was what we had been talking about in class, and I like poetry. I was also interested in finding a poem from the era that my ancestors lived in East Frisia, that being the mid 19th century or older. However, it seems that Low German, a rather small language that’s grown smaller as Standard German has taken over the country, is too small to have much poetry. I found reference to a single volume of poetry in Plautdietsch, a Mennonite dialect of Low German, but I wasn’t able to easily access it, and, my ancestors being solidly Lutheran, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have spoken that dialect. So I turned to Annika’s suggestions of songs written by her father. I relied on her descriptions of them, as I wasn’t able to read them, and opted for Johann Iken because the subject of what it’s like in East Frisia seemed pertinent to the project. I then came to appreciate the song, and the works of de Vagabunden in general, as a modern effort to preserve this endangered language. In my inexpert opinion, song is an excellent way to preserve a language, because almost everyone likes music, whereas only some like poetry, and if the song is catchy, people will turn over the lyrics in their heads, internalizing the language. Additionally, if the song is recorded, like this one, it can continue to be appreciated and learned in its original form and voice long after it’s produced.

Because there isn’t a lot of metaphorical complexity in my poem, I focused mainly on lining up the rhythm of my translations. Due to the casual register, I had some freedom with how to do this, but there are some things that can only be said a few ways, and those phrases weren’t cooperating rhythmically. Not speaking Low German, I wasn’t able to tell exactly how the words were pronounced and thus unable to discern rhythm or count syllables purely from reading the words. I had a recording of Annika reading it to the rhythm of the song, but still not speaking Low German, at times I struggled to hear which exact syllables she was eliding, and couldn’t quite match up her words with the letters to hold the lines in my head very well. However, the mushing and elision in the song worked partly to my benefit, as I was able to approximate the syllables in my translation, opening up more phrasing options.

After I completed that translation, I was at a loss for what to do with my second. I talked with Eric and decided to incorporate a little bit of the vocabulary and structures from the original Low German. In “Letter of Recommendation: Translation,” Carina del Valle Schorske writes, “Certain words stay stubborn on both sides of a border and don’t seem to want to disclose themselves” (del Valle Schorske). I think hers is an excellent point, but it’s also true that there are some words that easily cross borders, especially those of neighboring languages. English and Low German are both Germanic languages, and while both have been through many changes since they diverged, with English being filtered through a lot of French, there are some similar words. With this in mind, I used the skeleton of my first translation and inserted some words from the original that I felt were intelligible in English as well (ex. Subkultur). Sometimes, though, there were bigger differences. There’s a structure in German and Low German that Annika told me about that’s used in this poem, in which statements are phrased as questions. It’s in two verses: “Lord, how drunk are they?” and “How smart are we?” In my first translation, I turned these lines into statements so that they would make sense to English readers. But in my second translation, where I retained more of the Low German flavor, I kept them in their question format. Even though I wasn’t prioritizing rhythm and literalness as much here, I was keeping those features in mind, and they came out pretty faithful to the original in this version as well.

In our readings for this unit about preserving endangered languages that have been oppressed, usually as part of colonialism, there were many stories of people who were getting so much out of connecting with their heritage languages. In one article, a young South African learning a heritage language says, “‘I love learning this language. It makes me feel like I belong, like I am connected to my great-grandparents. I'm told that they used to speak it and today I can be a part of that too.” (Fihlani) I was wondering if I’d feel any sort of strong connection or enlightenment from this project, but while it was interesting to learn about Low German as one of my heritage languages, I still can’t say I feel terribly connected to it. Despite translating a poem from Low German, I’ve interacted primarily with English during this project, and where I did interact with Low German, I wasn’t understanding it. I knew what the phrases generally meant in English, but purely through reading a literal translation. I don’t understand the language at all. It did, however, slightly fill the hole in my understanding of my genealogy that was Low German — but just a little.

I’m not sure what exactly the people featured in these articles are thinking and feeling, but the stories often highlight some disconnect with the self due to a lack of connection with their heritage, a disconnect that can be partially healed through learning a heritage language. I was struggling to imagine what this would feel like. Perhaps, in the words of del Valle Schorske, “[my] social context has been designed to support [my] sense of individual coherence,” (del Valle Schorske) and that’s why I can’t relate. I don’t feel a particular connection to my heritage, but neither do I feel a stinging disconnect. It’s telling that when I look around my life, I see disproportionately the impacts of a very specific branch of my family: the early Massachusetts colonists. Living in Boston, the foundations of my environment were laid by their colonization of this region. I don’t think I valorize these ancestors, but there’s always a part of me that, by my mere presence here, is living out their settler colonial dream. As a white person whose ancestors all immigrated here over 150 years ago, by now, they’ve all been subsumed into America, and I was born from that mess.

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My mom’s family is quite tidy when compared with my father’s tangle of a family. On her side, most people had one marriage and many kids, and lived in the Midwest. Everyone was German Lutheran. My dad’s family is half British, going back too far in Massachusetts to remember Europe, and half varied Western European, too dispersed to hold onto any significant roots. Few held onto partners for very long. My mother was the obvious choice to interview.

She didn’t tell me much new information, except when she decided to read a family history document claiming that one small branch of the family emigrated from French Canada, and were very probably Catholic. This was a revelation to her. It was new to me, but, being of more varied origins than her, I was not as astonished as my mother, who was pretty sure she was 100% percent German Lutheran. I was, however, frustrated with the interview process. The assignment included transcribing notes of what she said, and I was determined to hand write her speech word-for-word. Even with my messiest handwriting, I couldn't keep up, and I had to continually pause her, irritating both of us.

While I know much of my branch of the family’s genealogical knowledge, I have little context for it. I haven’t met the vast majority of my recognized extended family, as my mom’s parents were the ones that left farming and dispersed. I’ve driven through rural Illinois and been to Chicago, made one trip to Wisconsin where I met nearly all the extended maternal relatives I’ve ever encountered. So “we’re German” is, for me, a clear fact of my being, but nearly irrelevant to my identity. Nothing about me feels German.

With this in mind, I’ve created a three-voiced poem of fragmented recollections. The left-aligned portions are basic assertions about our heritage, the kind I’ve heard in any family history discussion. The center sections are more specific stories or facts from the interview. The right-aligned portions are my thoughts, or relations of the facts to my own life. This creates a patchy but connected narrative of my understanding of my German heritage.

Works Cited

Hoofdmann, Annika. Personal interview. 20 May 2025.

del Valle Schorske, Carina. “Letter of Recommendation: Translation.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-translation.html

Fihlani, Pumza. “Trying to save South Africa's first language.” BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39935150, 30 August 2017.