I tell the (admittedly obscure) tale I heard told …
A Manx Note Book has a wealth of Manx-related resources, including a number of full texts. Sadly, only the intro to Cregeen’s 1835 A Dictionary of the Manks Language is available, but surely there is something that will catch your interest here.
Update: A very nice handbook of Paraguayan philately, with a discussion of Paraguay’s military history.
A new Army military occupational specialty, 09L, is the latest weapon in the nation’s arsenal in the global war on terror — and it’s working, Army officials said April 20.
The L stands for linguist, and the program is designed to find and recruit native speakers of various high-demand languages and dialects for service in the U.S. Army. Thus far, 77 new recruits have been trained and mobilized. All are serving in the U.S. Central Command theater of operations — a requirement they were made aware of upfront — and the results have been just what commanders hoped.
…
The 09L program began in February 2003 when the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs was tasked with recruiting native speakers to assist U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan with interpretations, translations, cultural familiarity and an understanding of the nuances of body language. The three languages most needed were Dari and Pashto, the two most prevalent languages spoken in Afghanistan, and Arabic.
Full story here.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried out her rusty Russian in a Moscow radio interview Wednesday, only to get caught out by a question on whether she might run for president.
“Da (Yes),” Rice answered in Russian, before realizing her misunderstanding and hastily adding “Nyet” (No) — seven times.
Full story here. Perhaps she should be reading RusskiBlog 
After the election of a pope, the Camerlengo appears on the balcony and informs the crowd, “Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam!” - I announce to you a great joy: We have a pope! Shortly after the election of Pius XII in 1939, Primo Levi was working in the lab for a chemistry course; the students had to analyze samples to determine which elements were present. After some time, a student solemnly intoned “Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus ferrum!” This discovery of iron is recounted in Levi’s The Periodic Table.
Well … I thought it was funny …
In any case, here is an article about translating Levi, and his views on translation.
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.
Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.
In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.
Full story here. Another short report, from which I stole the title of this post.
The remains of a 2,000-year-old rabbit - found at an early Roman settlement at Lynford, Norfolk - may be the earliest example of rabbit remains in Britain.
The bones - which show evidence the animal had been butchered and buried - are similar to those of a small Spanish rabbit, common in Roman times.
It is thought rabbits were introduced to Britain following the Roman invasion in AD43.
Full story here.
There is a project underway to create a digital facsimile of the (arguably) oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, now split in four countries (via Cronaca).
A team of experts from the UK, Europe, Egypt, Russia and the US have joined together to reunite this iconic treasure in virtual form. This unprecedented collaborative approach to achieve reunification involves all four of the institutions at which parts of the manuscript are held : St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai; the British Library, the University of Leipzig, Germany; and the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg.
The project encompasses four strands: conservation, digitisation, transcription and scholarly commentary to make the Codex available for a worldwide audience of all ages and levels of interest. There are plans for a range of projects including a free to view website, a high quality digital facsimile and CD Rom. It is intended that this project will be a model for future collaborations on other manuscripts.
The British Library already has a number of digital facsimiles available for browsing, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Diamond Sutra.
As I mentioned the other day that it seems like Pope John Paul II could speak Swahili, here are some Swahili links:
As Pope John Paul II’s health continues to decline, most reports mention his command of eight languages. I know he knows Latin, English, Spanish, Polish, and Italian. As I can’t find a list of his other languages, I’m guessing they are Russian, French, and German. Naturally, talk of his successor is becoming more common. One of the papabili, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, is even more accomplished when it comes to languages:
Martini has been identified by the media as “the favorite,” which means it is unlikely he will become the pope. There is a saying in Rome: “To enter the conclave a pope is to exit a cardinal.”
In a less superstitious vein, there are other reasons to doubt Martini’s candidacy. Although considered brilliant, a renowned scholar and linguist fluent in 11 languages, Martini is outspoken, a Jesuit and a liberal inclined toward reform.
As to the continuing unrest in Kyrgyzstan, some people don’t know when to give up.
In light of everything going on in Kyrgyzstan, I thought I would present some Kyrgyz (or Kirghiz) links:
More links to follow …
American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States - always did like Howard Beale’s speech in Network
A few links about the Indo-European (specifically, Iranian) language of Ossetia:
I just bought A Great and Noble Scheme, “the story of how the hapless French Acadians were run out of their Nova Scotia homes,” so I’ll offer a few Cajun links (and one for Creole):
On an unrelated note, I also purchased Madame De Pompadour, by Nancy Mitford, a biography of Louis XV’s mistress. It really doesn’t have anything to do with languages, at least as far as I’ve read, but it does mention le Comte de Saint Germain, a very … interesting … man from the eighteenth century. Among his other accomplishments, he was reputed to speak all the languages of Europe, though I haven’t tracked down the original evidence for that assertion. Some people think he’s still around. What’s two centuires if you were old when you met Jesus?
A purely graphical translation, by Hugo Gellert, of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. I like the octopus. Would you ever guess that this picture represents “The Mystery of the Fetishistic Character of Commodities Exchange”? (via Incoming Signals)
The variety of Catalan spoken on the island of Minorca is called Menorquí; unsurprisingly, the dialect spoken on Mallorca is known as Mallorquí. Here are some short prayers in Mallorquí, and here are some phrases. Menorquí still shows the influence of English from the eighteenth century, when England owned the island. Some easily interpreted examples are grevi, bifi, and plumqueque - all foodstuffs, belying the reputation of English cuisine. There are other differences as well; for example, Spanish el, which in Catalan is els, is es.
The capital, Mahon (Sp. Mahón Men. Maó), gave its name to mayonnaise, supposedly created in honor of the Duc de Richelieu’s capture of the city in 1756 during the Seven Years War. The name of the island itself, meaning “little one” dates from Roman times and contrasts with Mallorca, “big one.” The Phoenicians had referred to it as Nura, the island of Fire, and the Greeks as Meloussa, the island of Cattle.
I recently purchased a few sheets from the May, 1881 issue of Iapi Oaye, the Word Carrier, a Dakota-language newspaper published at the Yankton (Dakota) and Santee (Nakota) reservations. The Riggs brothers, Stephen and Alfred, both served as editors. There is a short article about hippopotamus hunting in Africa, accompanied by a large illustration that looks like it came from Harper’s. I have typed up the article (I’m not sure which dialect it is in) and am trying to translate it; however, my study of Dakota is just beginning so it’s not going very quickly. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions (in the comments or blog at mithridates dot com). In the meanwhile, some resources I’m using that others might find helpful: