Fifty Years Of Mam And Paw

Congrats to Mam and Paw! May the next 50 years be triply blessed! Thanks for sharing such a great, shining photo of them!

Rod, all the best to your parents and family on this joyous occasion! – Mark

God grant them many years! Such a wonderful thing to celebrate! (And you and Ruthie sure look like them both!)

Happy Anniversary to them, 50 years is a milestone.

Congratulations! I just love hearing about your folks, Rod. Forgive my impertinence, but after reading all you’ve written, I don’t feel like I know them well, but do feel like I know them well enough to truly like them. Wonderful people!

Congrats to your parents!

Congratulations to your parents and I wish you and the whole family a great day of celebration,

Emanuele

God bless them, and you.

Wonderful! Many happy years to them!

Lovely couple! Congratulations to them and your whole family.

Wonderful. Best wishes on achieving this milestone. And they could be hobbits!

Congratulations to them. My parents are at 52 anniversaries and counting.

There are few greater blessings.

Congratulations to them.

I sat for a much too short a time in their living room during the Percy weekend, and I hope to spend more time in their company next year.

As they used to say in the Old Country (both sides of my heritage): L’chaim! Zivio Ziveli!!

Congratulations! I love how their smiles match in their picture. May they have many more happy years together.

Congratulations and best wishes! May every day be a joyous one!

That is truly awesome! They look like they couldn’t be happier, too.

Happy 50th Anniversary to your parents! God bless them.

Many happy returns to y’all.

Congratulations! May they live to see their diamond jubilee!

Congratulations on their Golden Anniversary! Now on to their Diamond!

Many years!

Wonderful achievement. Give your mom and dad my congrats!

Happy 50th, Mam and Paw! God bless you both.

My wife and I are celebrating out 21st today.

Thanks for sharing. That photo just makes me smile!

You look like your Dad, Ruthie looked like her Mom. Best wishes to your whole family.
j

Happy Anniversary to your lovely parents!

This age always says to me: Rembrandt Material!
Congrats to your folks.

Congrats to them!

Congratulations! 50 years is a feat!

Congratulations to them, and many more.

What a wonderful milestone, and such a lovely photo, Rod. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful time of celebration.

Congratulations to your folks. I know they are proud of you and Ruthie.

Godspeed and bless them.

Many Years!

Congratulations Mam and Paw! I’m so glad we can share a little of this day’s happiness with you and your family.

I met Dot and Ray in 1989 and have loved them ever since. They are a great couple. Congratulations on 50 years.

Happy Anniversary to them! That’s something to celebrate!

Многая лета! Many years!

can only hope to reach such a milestone – congratulations! (Hope you gave them a party!)

Let me add my congratulations to them, Rod, and to James P as well. Franklin, those two toasts you gave are from Hebrew and Serbian, respectively, and both mean something along the lines of “Here’s to Life!”, is that correct? Turmarion, I can tell that’s Cyrillic (I think), is it Russian or some other Slavic language?

Viking: You are correct on both counts. They are also common toasts at celebrations like a wedding anniversary (or a wedding, or a birth, etc.) They are colloquially cognate to “cheers!”

And since I can read Cyrillic: Yes, Turmarion wrote “Mnogaya leta”. I thought it was familiar: ^[2], and I suggest you close your eyes if you get dizzy. The handheld camera is not indicative of the good sound quality. 😀

” I can tell that’s Cyrillic (I think), is it Russian or some other Slavic language?”

I’ll show off and say its Russian for Tumarion. He is absolutely correct that the translation is ‘Many years’ — but it literally says ‘Many summers’. ‘God’ is year in Russian and other Slavic languages, but Russian changes the plural to ‘lyeta’, plural of ‘lyeto’ or summer. Cf. mnogo godina (many years) in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian.

Okay, done geeking out now.

Oops, on second thought, and looking at the grammar, I thought Tumarion had made a mistake — Russian would be ‘Mnogo lyet- ‘. However, Bulgarian is Mnogaya lyeta. So it must be Bulgarian or, perhaps, OCS. This is why the slavic languages are so fascinating — they are many times so close, yet so far.

Okay, really done geeking out now.

M_Young, there can never be too much geeking out… 😀

I need a more recent source to confirm this, but I learned many years ago from a Russian Orthodox friend (we played balalaika music together) that its colloquial meaning “trumps” its literal translation.

Anyway, for people who want to continue geeking out outside this thread, ^[3] was the Slavonic deity of harmony, merriment, youth, love and beauty. “E” (eh) or “je” (yeh) to “a” (ah) or “ja” (yah), and “t” to “d” are common cognate shifts from northern to southern Slavic.

^[4].

By the way, I know Lado Ansambl from having danced their choreographies to their recorded music. Ladarke was one of the first songs I heard in the international folk dance repertoire, and it still gives me goosebumps listening to it.

Congratulations, and many more happy years to the intrepid team that raised Rod and Ruthie!

Franklin Evans and M_Young, thanks a lot for geeking out on my behalf and that of anyone else interested in such linguistic matters. Franklin, my sound system is malfunctioning, so I didn’t look at the YouTube video you referenced. Thanks all the same. M (is that short for “Mitchell”, by any chance?), I’ve heard that Slavic languages are interesting for that reason. During my freshman year in college, I was on the same dorm floor as a Californian (San Jose) of Croatian descent, who decided to get better acquainted with his ancestral tongue by conversing with a Russian professor, who knew several Slavic tongues. Some time later, when a TV channel showed a Russian film classic with subtitles, he claimed to have been able to understand about half of the spoken language, without having ever taken the tongue. There’s a similarity among Slavic languages that just isn’t found among either Germanic or Romantic ones. Btw, is “OCS” Old Church Slavic, or something else?

PS If my asking about your first name is too personal for your taste, it might help if I tell you that my first name is Tom. Well, Thomas actually.