Tuesday 15 April 2008

For Language Lovers

I have always been interested in languages, which is one reason I majored in linguistics at university. For those of you who also share this fascination, here is a website that my friend Philip turned me on to (http://www.lowlands-l.net/anniversary/contents.php).

The idea started with a folktale in a Low Saxon (Low German) dialect and the desire to translate it into various other Low Saxon dialects as a way to showcase those dialects and their orthographies. It's now expanded to include languages from all over the world. Some translations even include sound recordings so that you can here the story being told in that language.

Since Philip is from the Shetland Islands and is interested in the preservation of the dialect he speaks, he included a link to a couple of Shetlandic translations of the story.

I notice that, among other languages, there aren't any translations of the story into Lithuanian or Tamil. And there's no sound recording for Cebuano. Maybe there are people out there that could help with that? And Mike, I know this isn't exactly your neck of the woods, but what about a sound recording for this translation? I bet I could pull it off.

2 comments:

LazyMF said...

My sister can probably add one in Friulan. I'll get her on that.

Alan Hendrixson said...

I wasn't familiar with that language--had to look it up. Interesting. So I guess that your family came from the north-eastern part of Italy, eh? So how come you don't know the language?