I can’t argue with that, because the German “wenn” is definitely more ambiguous than the English “when”, but since it’s a lullaby, you kinda have to assume that perhaps it’s leaning more on the positive side, because who on earth would want their baby to die in their sleep?
If Germans really were this cruel, they would have been wiped off the face of the earth a long time ago.
Since the song is quite old and “when” is the older meaning, there is a point to make about the intended meaning. What I took issue with was calling it a mistranslation and at least by now I think we agree it’s not
because who on earth would want their baby to die in their sleep?
actually, this exact thought was really calming to me when i was a kid (yes, the song was sung to me too):
if i die, at least i die in my sleep, where i wouldn’t really be aware of it anyways, so i don’t have to care about it. it’s like, every human has to die sometime, but at least it can be in your sleep. and there’s nothing you can do about it either, so you don’t have to worry about it.
I can’t argue with that, because the German “wenn” is definitely more ambiguous than the English “when”, but since it’s a lullaby, you kinda have to assume that perhaps it’s leaning more on the positive side, because who on earth would want their baby to die in their sleep?
If Germans really were this cruel, they would have been wiped off the face of the earth a long time ago.
Since the song is quite old and “when” is the older meaning, there is a point to make about the intended meaning. What I took issue with was calling it a mistranslation and at least by now I think we agree it’s not
actually, this exact thought was really calming to me when i was a kid (yes, the song was sung to me too):
if i die, at least i die in my sleep, where i wouldn’t really be aware of it anyways, so i don’t have to care about it. it’s like, every human has to die sometime, but at least it can be in your sleep. and there’s nothing you can do about it either, so you don’t have to worry about it.