I am translating a land record and I saw something that made me laugh.
“jedne hever dvoje šýrý”
Google translate had this coming up as:
“one two jack cheeses.”
To me, this sounded like “pepperjack cheese.” Yum yum. But I was seriously confused. It doesn’t really make sense to inherit…cheese. Especially because this was listed with the rest of the farm equipment stuff like plows, wagons, tills, horses, etc.
I also played around with the idea that the word “hever” was really “Chevre” – goat’s cheese, my favorite! Yum yum yum. But…yeah…still…that makes no sense. Not grammatical sense, and not actual sense.
I wouldn’t say no to inheriting cheese. But farm equipment would probably be handier for feeding my family in the long term!
This is the real take-away from this post: ý and í are basically interchangeable in archaic Czech.
A transcription to modern Czech would be something like: “jedne hever dvoje šíří.” This translates to “one jack [and] two spread[er]s.”
A jack being a device used to lift heavy objects, and a “spead” presumably being something used to spread something (manure? seeds?) on the ground.