Firecat--

'Twouldn't suprise me if you're both right. Although I think we in the English speaking world tend to forget that other languages are often less (or more) polyglot in origin, vocabulary, and color than our own, German is certainly full enough of figurative language to support at least two ways to say "happy birthday." I've often been delighted to discover the "literal" meanings of some of the German phrases for some of these things, such as "ach du lieber."

Chris