300 * 4 questions = Many Scripts
"Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.text.unicode.devel |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
At my parents' house for Thanksgiving today, they gave me a copy of a book that might interest some of the readers here. A friend of my mother's, over ten years ago, started collecting translations of the "Four Questions" from the Passover Seder into as many languages as he could. According to him, finding out about me and getting from me the Klingon version gave him the impetus to really pursue the project and turn it into a book. The book has translations into 300 languages, each printed in its native script (if applicable), and comes with a CD and a DVD full of performances and readings of the various translations. (Things like signed languages couldn't be printed and are thus really only available in video on the DVD). I'm actually pretty impressed with the quality of the work and the explanations they give for each and every language. I'm sure not all the typography is 100% perfect, but there was definitely a lot of effort put into it. All the languages have the appropriate font, often with a transliteration as well. Mongolian, relevant to recent discussion, is shown in Cyrillic transcription, but in the "ancient/extinct languages" section there is an entry for "Ancient Mongolian" which is written in proper vertical fashion. Take a look: http://whyisthisnight.com/ The book is called "300 Ways to Ask the Four Questions: From Zulu to Abkhaz". The languages are somewhat annoyingly arranged in *reverse* alphabetical order, on the grounds that Hebrew reads right to left. Go figure. ~mark