By Katrin on Friday, 13 February 2026
Category: and now for something completely different

More Translation Fun.

Translation fun not as in "transporting a saint's bones from here to somewhere else", but translation as in "making a text from one language magically appear as a very, very similar text in another language". 

Sometimes it's really easy and straightforward. Sometimes, the other language would express it in a different way, so making a literal translation is understandable and clear, but a little odd. And sometimes... the word doesn't exist.

Case in point (other than the Erhebung): Umbettung. (Looks like it's a theme here with the dead...) In German, there's a word for taking a corpse out of the burial place and re-burying it at some other place, and that is Umbettung. (The literal translation would be transfer-bedding? Something "betten" means to carefully lay it down into a dedicated bed, and the "um" indicates that it is changing position either inside the same bed or into a new one; in case of bones, it's generally a new one.)

So, like anyone tasked with translating a text from German to English, I use the words that I have in my head, and if I am unsure or if I don't have them in my head already, I go chase for them. Usually my first point of call is dict.leo.org and sometimes I go look the thing up in German in Wikipedia and then switch to the English page on that thing. (Wiktionary.org, while a wonderful resource and one of my favourite for language learning or etymology checking, is usually not one of my go-to places.) 

Leo told me straight away... nothing. Oh, wait, the forum with questions and discussion section has something. Something as in "someone looked for this translation before and was told that this is a total no-go in England and thus they have no word for it". Just to make sure (and because I find these things fascinating), I looked it up on Wikipedia and there is Umbettung and, apparently, a Japanese version of the article. There is also an article about one very specific regional tradition involving the regular Umbettung in Madagascar, called Famadihana, and for this, an English entry does exist. However, while the German version says it's a ritualistic Umbettung right in the first sentence (and in the image caption), there is no such text in the English version (and no caption at all). Being curious, I then checked the French entry for that, and there's a descriptive image caption and also no term that looks to be the direct equivalent of the German one to me. 

Related to this, and also fun to look at: There's quite a difference between the article "Beinhaus" in German and its English equivalent term "ossuary", both in length and in specific sub-topics covered. So yes, there seems to be a lack of terms regarding the handling of corpses once they are buried in the English language.

(Also, in case you wondered what kinds of rabbit holes I will fall into when not taking care? This kind.)

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