# hübsch, niedlich oder artig



## Löwenfrau

Hallo!

I'm not sure which are the best options to translate these three words:

"Nun war aber bei den Lateinern ein anderes Wort sehr volkstümlich: _bellus_ (aus_benulus_ von _bonus)_, das unserem _hübsch, niedlich_ oder dem veralteten _artig_ entspricht."

Of course I will leave them in German, but I must add a translation in brackets. My first attempt:

"... our _hübsch [pretty], niedlich [graceful]_ or the obsolete _artig [elegant]..._"

Dictionaries give "funny" as the equivalent for "niedlich", but I suspect that is not what Mauthner means here. As to "artig", I can't find an English equivalent for the Portuguese word I have in mind: _jeitoso_. This would mean "the quality of someone or something that has beautiful/harmonious integration between his/her/its parts and (if it is someone or anything alive) movements." _Elegant_ is perhaps the closest.

Thanks in advance!


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Dictionaries give "funny" as the equivalent for "niedlich", but I suspect that is not what Mauthner means here. As to "artig", I can't find an English equivalent for the Portuguese word I have in mind: _jeitoso_. This would mean "the quality of someone or something that has beautiful/harmonious integration between his/her/its parts and (if it is someone or anything alive) movements." _Elegant_ is perhaps the closest.
> 
> Thanks in advance!



I only know the modern definition of "artig" where it means well-behaved.
Grimm says:
_"[...] heute drückt es uns aus geschickt, hübsch, manierlich, niedlich, zierlich, elegant. ein artiges, frommes, geschicktes kind [...]"

_So, _elegant, well-mannered_, or similar seems quite accurate. 

In my book, the best semantic match for _niedlich_ is cute!


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## bearded

My suggestion for _artig _(in that context) : gentle.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> I only know the modern definition of "artig" where it means well-behaved.
> Grimm says:
> _"[...] heute drückt es uns aus geschickt, hübsch, manierlich, niedlich, zierlich, elegant. ein artiges, frommes, geschicktes kind [...]"
> 
> _So, _elegant, well-mannered_, or similar seems quite accurate.
> 
> In my book, the best semantic match for _niedlich_ is cute!






Mauthner sustains that these many words are used to people as well as to animals and things. So, I believe _elegant_ is more appropriate, because it is wider than _well-mannered_.

_cute_ has something to do with _graceful_, doesn't it? 



> My suggestion for _artig (in that context) : gentle._



I thought of that too, but considering that it applies to people as well as animals and things, maybe _elegant_ fits better. Besides, _elegant_ fits both physical characteristics and manners, but _gentle_ only manners. In that aspect too _elegant _is more general.


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## cuore romano

The only meaning of _artig_ I know is that of _wohlerzogen = well-behaved_, weel-bred, well-mannered.

It's used for small children and dogs.


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## Löwenfrau

cuore romano said:


> The only meaning of _artig_ I know is that of _wohlerzogen = well-behaved_, weel-bred, well-mannered.
> 
> It's used for small children and dogs.



We must take Mauthner's time into account. Besides the meaning you pointed out, Duden gives too obsolete meanings: _höflich, galant_, and _anmutig, nett. _Actually, Mauthner has in mind a meaning which was obsolete even in _his _time; he says "dem veralteten _artig..._"

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/artig

So the meaning of _elegant_ seems quit fitting. But I can't know for sure if this is what he actually meant.


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> So the meaning of _elegant_ seems quit fitting. But I can't know for sure if this is what he actually meant.



Grimm brothers published the first part of their German dictionary around 1850: _"[...] heute [=1850] drückt es [=artig] uns aus *geschickt, hübsch, manierlich, niedlich, zierlich, elegant*. [...]" _and only 50 years later Mauthner called this use obsolete. Apparently "artig" was synonymous to all of the bolded words above in the 19th century and before.

Mauthner is arguing that Latin bellus is equivalent to hübsch, niedlich, artig, which implies that all of the German words have the same core meaning.

Here's my personal differentiation:
hübsch, pretty: description of the outer appearance alone (coupled with one's own subjective opinion of the term beauty)
niedlich, cute: visually pleasing in an endearing way; not solely focussed on physical beauty but includes also inner beauty, i.e. the way one thinks, acts, behaves
artig (pre-1900 use): seems it was used with the meaning "der Art entsprechend" and that automatically included the observer's expectation of how one is expected to behave, look, be and that explains Grimm's description *geschickt, hübsch, manierlich, niedlich, zierlich, elegant*.
Today this use is definitely obsolete; only the meaning _artig = well-behaved _has survived.

----------------------
PS: I just looked at your Duden-link and the synonym "anmutig" sounds very good for artig and it's in the same league as hübsch and niedlich. And my dictionary gives "(graceful) charming, pleasant" for it. All of them fit very well in comparison to hübsch and niedlich.
(I don't like the single word "elegant" because it's too specific for my taste)


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## Löwenfrau

> niedlich, cute: visually pleasing in an endearing way; not solely focussed on physical beauty but includes also inner beauty, i.e. the way one thinks, acts, behaves



Why not _graceful_? The description you gave for _cute_ is also the description of _graceful_, and I still think that _cute_ is much too informal for this context. This gets even worst in Portuguese: our _cute_ is "_fofo"_, which makes one thinks of a Teddy bear... "_Gracioso"_ [_graceful_] sounds a lot better.



> PS: I just looked at your Duden-link and the synonym "anmutig" sounds very good for artig and it's in the same league as hübsch and niedlich. And my dictionary gives "(graceful) charming, pleasant" for it. All of them fit very well in comparison to hübsch and niedlich.
> (I don't like the single word "elegant" because it's too specific for my taste)



Yes, I was thinking precisely in _anmutig_: I believe this is what Mauthner had in mind when he wrote _artig_. Now, if I am to use _graceful_ as an equivalent for _niedlich_, then of course I can't use as an equivalent for_ artig_.
_Charming_, I think, is as specific as _elegant_. _Pleasant _is more general. Other candidates could be: _harmonious_, _delightful_, _lovely,_ _adorable_. But I think Portuguese _jeitoso_ fits fine: it means _having good/beautiful aspect and/or manners. _Isn't _artig _that which has _gute/schöne Arte_? The words have the same structure:
Art  artig
jeito  jeitoso

Thanks to you all, you have helped a lot!


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## djweaverbeaver

Hi,

_*Cute *_and _*graceful *_don't mean the same thing.   *Graceful *implies elegance and form whereas cute does not.  Furthermore, *cute *is not necessarily informal.  Only when it means sexually attractive would I say that it is informal.  It can convey the daintiness that *niedlich *often implies.


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Why not _graceful_? The description you gave for _cute_ is also the description of _graceful_, and I still think that _cute_ is much too informal for this context. This gets even worst in Portuguese: our _cute_ is "_fofo"_, which makes one thinks of a Teddy bear... "_Gracioso"_ [_graceful_] sounds a lot better.


 Yes, it sounds better but it has nothing to do with niedlich!
I met a cute girl once who became clumsy whenever she got nervous and emotionally excited - and this clumsiness and complete lack of grace combined with her beauty and behavior in such situations made her "cute beyond belief" (for me).
Similarly, a little kitten can be "cute and niedlich" because it's a pretty little thing, fluffy and lacks the calculated behavior and also grace of a grown-up feline!

Also in German "niedlich" is closer to a teddy bear than to a styled fashion model!



Löwenfrau said:


> But I think Portuguese _jeitoso_ fits fine: it means _having good/beautiful aspect and/or manners. _Isn't _artig _that which has _gute/schöne Arte_? The words have the same structure:
> Art  artig
> jeito  jeitoso



I don't really have a firm feeling for the pre-1900 use of the word but your description sounds fine and seems suitable.

-------------------
PS: I just noticed on Google Translate that "fofo" has a meaning of "*fluffy*, cute, cottony, light" 
The fluffy part definitely doesn't exist in German niedlich! "bonitinho" seems much closer to the German meaning and usage. (since niedlich does carry a strong connotation of a diminutive)

Most synonyms (especially the ones highlighted by me) from Google Translate do correlate well to the German usage:
_*cute*
attractive in a pretty or endearing way._
_"a cute kitten"_
_synonyms: *endearing, adorable, lovable, sweet, lovely, appealing*, engaging, delightful, dear, darling, winning, winsome, *attractive, pretty*, cutesy, twee, kawaii_


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## Löwenfrau

> a little kitten can be "cute and niedlich" because it's a pretty little thing, fluffy and lacks the calculated behavior and also grace of a grown-up feline



That's a very good example, I perfectly understand the difference now. But, as you said yourself, I want to avoid "fluffy". "Bonitinho" is the perhaps the best option.

Thanks again for enormous help!


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## manfy

You're welcome! 

Just a final note to future readers of this thread:
DO NOT blindly use the word "niedlich" as direct equivalent to "cute" in modern German! 
While it's quite ok in English to say to another grown-up person "I think you're cute. I'd like to see you again.", you CANNOT expect the same result/answer with the literal translation "Ich finde dich niedlich. Ich würde dich gern wieder sehen."
Even though you might hear this in 3rd person quite often (when the person in question is not present), you normally do not use it in second person with a grown-up because it can sound a bit degrading and is very rarely seen as flattering.


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## Löwenfrau

> Even though you might hear this in 3rd person quite often (when the person in question is not present), you normally do not use it in second person with a grown-up because it can sound a bit degrading and is very rarely seen as flattering.



It would sound rude and impolite?


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> It would sound rude and impolite?



Well, rude is the wrong word. Let's stick to "not flattering"!
Reason being, beauty is *always* exaggerated (sociologically speaking)! So, if you meet somebody who looks beautiful, you call it stunning, somebody pretty is called beautiful, somebody so-so is (quite) pretty, and somebody seriously ugly is "...don't be silly! You don't look bad at all..."

"niedlich" by itself is not a diminutive, BUT the German word for diminutive is "Verniedlichung", so you see why it has a strong connotation of a diminutive.
And if a girl looks nice you *never ever ever* downplay it by telling her, she's "niedlich"!

In modern German "niedlich" is primarily used for kids, puppies and kittens (and for third party people who are not around to listen in). So the word by itself has no derogatory or negative meaning!! But you just don't say it to somebody's face because rarely any grown-up wants to be "niedlich", everybody wants to be stunning, beautiful, extraordinary. I guess, you have to thank the advertising industry for that!


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## Löwenfrau

Thanks for your explanation, manfy, I promise I won't call anyone "niedlich"


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Thanks for your explanation, manfy, I promise I won't call anyone "niedlich"



  ...except for kids, puppies, and kittens!
....and some special other people - but then only behind their backs, of course...


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## Löwenfrau

manfy, look what I found in the same text from Mauthner:



"... Diese Lehre war meines Wissens zuerst von Burke aufgestellt worden, dem wunderlichen Engländer, der offenbar aus den Bildern der zeitgenössischen Maler sein niedliches Schönheitsideal abstrahiert hatte."

He uses _niedlich_ in an explicitly pejorative sense... Of course, "his cute ideal of beauty" doesn't sound flattering at all...


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> He uses _niedlich_ in an explicitly pejorative sense... Of course, "his cute ideal of beauty" doesn't sound flattering at all...



 Yes, belittling and pejorative. In this context I'd probably translate "niedlich" as "neat". And even though "neat" has normally a generally positive meaning, the context makes it clear that it is not used in an overly flattering way.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> Yes, belittling and pejorative. In this context I'd probably translate "niedlich" as "neat". And even though "neat" has normally a generally positive meaning, the context makes it clear that it is not used in an overly flattering way.



I think in Portuguese the diminutive of 'beautiful' works fine: 'bonitinho'. Sounds like 'neat' and 'cute' at the same time.


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## Löwenfrau

After you said you would use _neat_, I searched, and found that this word can also mean:_ clear_; _pure_; and also _great_, _excellent_, _wonderful_... So don't you think it would sound ambiguous?


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> After you said you would use _neat_, I searched, and found that this word can also mean:_ clear_; _pure_; and also _great_, _excellent_, _wonderful_... So don't you think it would sound ambiguous?



The German sentence has such a pejorative and sarcastic undertone that a genuinely positive meaning of "niedlich" is blocked (or at least, highly unlikely).
I feel, the same is true for "neat" when this undertone is retained in the translation.

Besides, 'ambiguous' is Mauthner's middle name. He's wittingly playing with it a lot in his German texts.


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> The German sentence has such a pejorative and sarcastic undertone that a genuinely positive meaning of "niedlich" is blocked (or at least, highly unlikely).
> I feel, the same is true for "neat" when this undertone is retained in the translation.
> 
> Besides, 'ambiguous' is Mauthner's middle name. He's wittingly playing with it a lot in his German texts.



I see. I'd have some headache finding an equally ambiguous word in Portuguese. But this time I think this is not necessary, since the undertone is clearly ironic.

Thank you!


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## Löwenfrau

"Man halte mir nicht entgegen, daß niemand vom Ende des 18. Jahrh. die intime Sachkenntnis verlangen kann, die heute mit Recht von jedem Professor der Kunstgeschichte und von jedem bessern Kunstkritiker verlangt wird. Nicht um Kunstgeschichte handelt es sich ja, sondern um Ästhetik, um die Lehre vom Schönen. Die ästhetischen Gefühle sollten untersucht werden, und diesem Geschäfte unterzogen sich Männer, die die großen Instrumentalwerke von Bach und Mozart mit Arabesken verglichen, die nie ein Originalbild von Raphael oder Rembrandt gesehen hatten, und die sogar der Poesie mit alten Regeln gegenübertraten. Es ist kein Wunder, daß aus dieser begrifflichen Beschäftigung mit der Kunst das neue Dogma hervorging: das Wesentliche der Kunstgegenstände sei, kein Interesse zu erregen.
Diese Lehre war meines Wissens zuerst von Burke aufgestellt worden, dem wunderlichen Engländer, der offenbar aus den Bildern der zeitgenössischen Maler sein niedliches Schönheitsideal abstrahiert hatte." 

This belong to the same text originally posted in this thread, where the word "niedlich" appears again. Would "cute" work here too? As far as I understand, Mauthner doesn't have a good reason for calling this ideal of beauty "niedlich", it seems to me that he just wanted to use a pejorative word, even if not so accurate for the context. I don't see a connection between "niedlich" and an ideal of beauty which abstracts from interests.


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Would "cute" work here too? As far as I understand, Mauthner doesn't have a good reason for calling this ideal of beauty "niedlich", it seems to me that he just wanted to use a pejorative word, even if not so accurate for the context. I don't see a connection between "niedlich" and an ideal of beauty which abstracts from interests.



Yes, I think that 'cute' or 'neat' could work here because within this context these words have a belittling nature, just like 'niedlich'.

The way Mauthner phrased this paragraph, it's clear that he disapproves of this dogma "das Wesentliche der Kunstgegenstände sei, kein Interesse zu erregen". 
The next sentence makes this disapproval very clear with:
* "dem *wunderlichen* Engländer" 
* "der *offenbar* ..." -> a subtle and yet powerful word here! It suggests something like "it's mind-boggling what he was thinking, but *apparently* he..." 
* "*sein **niedliches* Schönheitsideal" -> 'sein' emphasizes that it's only Burke's ideal of beauty, but certainly not Mauthner's; 'niedlich' is particularly belittling because Mauthner is talking about a serious topic in philosophy, hence such a diminutive is unexpected. The intentional use of this diminutive suggests the author's thoughts along the lines of "his [Burke's] neat, cute, orderly - albeit simplistic and largely imaginary - ideal of beauty".


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> Yes, I think that 'cute' or 'neat' could work here because within this context these words have a belittling nature, just like 'niedlich'.
> 
> The way Mauthner phrased this paragraph, it's clear that he disapproves of this dogma "das Wesentliche der Kunstgegenstände sei, kein Interesse zu erregen".
> The next sentence makes this disapproval very clear with:
> * "dem *wunderlichen* Engländer"
> * "der *offenbar* ..." -> a subtle and yet powerful word here! It suggests something like "it's mind-boggling what he was thinking, but *apparently* he..."
> * "*sein **niedliches* Schönheitsideal" -> 'sein' emphasizes that it's only Burke's ideal of beauty, but certainly not Mauthner's; 'niedlich' is particularly belittling because Mauthner is talking about a serious topic in philosophy, hence such a diminutive is unexpected. The intentional use of this diminutive suggests the author's thoughts along the lines of "his [Burke's] neat, cute, orderly - albeit simplistic and largely imaginary - ideal of beauty".





Except for one thing: you read *offenbar* as *wahrscheinlich*, I was reading it as "clearly"...


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> Except for one thing: you read *offenbar* as *wahrscheinlich*, I was reading it as "clearly"...



I can't quite 'feel' the meaning 'clearly' here. I'd use 'eindeutig' if I wanted to express that aspect.
Duden confirms, offenbar as adverb = "dem Anschein nach, wie es scheint" and as adjective = "offen zutage tretend, klar ersichtlich".


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> I can't quite 'feel' the meaning 'clearly' here. I'd use 'eindeutig' if I wanted to express that aspect.
> Duden confirms, offenbar as adverb = "dem Anschein nach, wie es scheint" and as adjective = "offen zutage tretend, klar ersichtlich".




I didn't know about this semantic difference, when it is used as adverb or as adjective... Thank you!

P.S.: Mauthner uses the word "offenbar" all the time; can I be confident that it always means 'apparently' when used as adverb, and 'clear' when used as adjective?


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> I didn't know about this semantic difference, when it is used as adverb or as adjective... Thank you!
> 
> P.S.: Mauthner uses the word "offenbar" all the time; can I be confident that it always means 'apparently' when used as adverb, and 'clear' when used as adjective?



To be honest, I didn't consciously know about it either before yesterday!  As a native speaker, I just look at the context and see how it makes me feel.
Unfortunately I can't guarantee that 'offenbar' as adverb definitively and always means 'apparently'. You can see that Duden lists 2 classes of synonyms for the adverb 'offenbar'. The first class has the meaning of 'visible', thus close to 'clearly', and the second goes more towards 'apparently, possibly, supposedly'.

So, I'd say, this guideline from my previous post is a good starting point, but then you should also look at the context to evaluate which meaning makes more sense.
With Mauthner's word plays and intentionally ambiguous usage, you never can be absolutely sure. If in doubt, just look at the preceding and succeeding sentence and evaluate what he's trying to say, then you'll get a good idea which meaning was intended. Mauthner's word usage is never erratic, it always fits well into the intended true meaning of the sentence, which is usually reiterated and emphasized by surrounding context - that's my impression, at least!


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## Löwenfrau

manfy said:


> To be honest, I didn't consciously know about it either before yesterday!  As a native speaker, I just look at the context and see how it makes me feel.
> Unfortunately I can't guarantee that 'offenbar' as adverb definitively and always means 'apparently'. You can see that Duden lists 2 classes of synonyms for the adverb 'offenbar'. The first class has the meaning of 'visible', thus close to 'clearly', and the second goes more towards 'apparently, possibly, supposedly'.
> 
> So, I'd say, this guideline from my previous post is a good starting point, but then you should also look at the context to evaluate which meaning makes more sense.
> With Mauthner's word plays and intentionally ambiguous usage, you never can be absolutely sure. If in doubt, just look at the preceding and succeeding sentence and evaluate what he's trying to say, then you'll get a good idea which meaning was intended. Mauthner's word usage is never erratic, it always fits well into the intended true meaning of the sentence, which is usually reiterated and emphasized by surrounding context - that's my impression, at least!




Thanks for sharing your impression and suggestions.


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