# portofěly



## Pan-Eslavo Brasil

Hello, people! How are you?

I am translating into Portuguese the old Czech song _Co jsem měl dnes k obědu_ (What I Had Today For Lunch), first recorded by Jiří Suchý c. 1965.

Many nouns of dishes from Czechia and neighbor regions are mentioned, but there is one that I could not find anywhere. It is *portofěly*, although it reminds me "kartofel" (potato, Cz. "brambor") in other languages. If someone could me help, there is also _*svinčičky*_, that I could not link to "pork".

Is this an "invention" of the composer, or does it really exists? Hehehe.

Thanks in advance!


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## jazyk

It is probably a wallet, in French portefeuille, even though the usual rendering of that word in Czech is portfej.


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## Pan-Eslavo Brasil

My God! I might first listen to the audio and compare with the text! I've just noted that he sings rather "*kartofěly, svinčíky*"... The first noun can be an unusual form of "brambory" (from German "Kartoffel"), and the second one can be "pork" or "dishes with pork" (although literally translated as "pigsty" or fig. "mess"). What do you think? I sure it is nothing with "wallets", hahaha.

P.S. Do you speak Portuguese??? [In any case, thanks for the answer!!!]


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## kriklova.bara

Hi, I found kartofěly, non *portofěly* - maybe mistake in transcription. And kartofěly is from german *kartoffel* = brambor (potato). I found also svinčiky instead of svinčičky. I would consider the word *svinčiky* to be a word game. *Svinčík* means _*mess. *_To this word was added the typical russian word ending to assimilation to previous words. But none of these dishes isn't czech. All of them are russian. And svinčiky refers to russian dishes which probably aren't very good 

Please excuse my bad English.


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## jazyk

It must be potatoes then. I took your word for it, found portofěly online, read around it, and thought that he was so hungry, he ate up everything he found on his way.


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## Pan-Eslavo Brasil

kriklova.bara said:


> All of them are russian. And svinčiky refers to russian dishes which probably aren't very good



It is an interesting suggestion, but I think it would be quite dangerous during Communist rule, hahaha.

Anyway, thank you very much, my Czech friends! You are sincerely contributing for the spread of Czech culture in Brazil


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## Mori.cze

Hi, sorry for the late answer, in my opinion it is really a word play with both meanings of svin- (pig and mess) and a typical Russian suffix.

It was not really _dangerous_ once they managed to smuggle it in under the censors' noses: clever tiny little subversions like that were to be found quite often (and laughed at, because people like to think they are more clever than the system representatives, a trait particularly strong in Czechs IMHO). The Semafor theatre (where this song comes from) were by no means known for being pro-regime.


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