Thursday 31 January 2019

Translation


I've read that the Brexit Divorce Agreement is 588 pages long. Unfortunately the report didn't say in which language the 588 pages are written.

There are 23 official languages in the EU.  There are also several languages which are known as semi-official languages. Welsh, the language of my homeland, is a semi-official language.

Some of the EU's 23 official languages are long on words and convoluted grammar while others are succinct and straightforward.

I've also read that after Brexit only 1% of EU citizens will have English as their first language.

As a result of the newly signed German-French  pact and the German-French EU Army project I can imagine that the languages of these two countries will soon have to be taught in all EU schools.

A curious fact is that a year or two ago one of the EU's presidents said he was pleased he'd no longer need to speak broken English as he preferred to speak fluent German or French.  Oddly, he made the remark in Italy.

The opinions of the EU's other presidents (the EU boasts 4 presidents by the way) are unknown.


The following passages in English and German (to illustrate the point) are taken at random from Salman Rushdie's Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies - 

The dusty compound between the bus stop and the Consulate was already full of Tuesday women, some veiled, a few barefaced like Miss Rehana. They all looked frightened, and leaned heavily on the arms of uncles or brothers, who were trying to look confident. But Miss Rehana had come on her own, and did not seem at all alarmed. 

Der staubige Platz zwischen  der Bushaltestelle und dem Konsulat wimmelte bereits von Dienstagsfrauen, manche von ihnen tief verschleiert, nur wenige mit völlig unverhülltem Gesicht wie Miss Rehana. Sie alle wirkten ängstlich und stützen sich schwer auf dem Arm des Onkels oder Bruders, der sich jeweils große Mühe gab, selbstsicher dreinzublicken. Miss Rehana dagegen war allein gekommen und schien überhaupt keine Angst zu haben. 

Muhammad Ali, who specialised in advising the most vulnerable-looking of these weekly supplicants, found his feet leading him towards the strange, big-eyed, independent girl. 

Muhammad Ali, der sich darauf spezialisiert hatte, die am unsichersten wirkenden der allwöchentlich erscheinenden Ratsuchenden anzusprechen, merkte plötzlich, dass seine Füße ihn unwillkürlich zu dieser seltsamen, großäugigen und selbstbewussten jungen Frau hinüber trugen. 



Twenty-seven countries and twenty-three languages. That's the long and the short of it. 



10 comments:

  1. I find it bad enough trying to cope with the Yorkshire version of English without trying to understand anything else.

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    1. It's not easy I can tell you.
      Es ist nicht einfach dass kann ich innen sagen.

      It's the story of Babylon all over again is it not? Even the EU Parliament building is designed after Bruegel's famous painting. Or is it the ECB which is called the EZB? I can never remember. I think it's the former.

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  2. Perhaps we should all learn esperanto? Even the kids in Spain can speak Spanish. I can't.

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    1. There's an esperanto museum in Vienna. I visited the place once and I read there that Herr Hitler was a admirer of that artificial creation known as Esperanto which nobody speaks. Mind you, he preferred second rate German operas to excellent Italian productions. All he 'achieved' was based on his fanaticism for the operas of Wagner and the final Weltuntergang (apocalypse) and that of Germany and most of Europe. The self-fulfilling wish of a madman and his followers.

      Today's 'lingua franca' is English. Esperanto will never catch on.

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  3. 100 words in any language will get you by and I have one hundred words of four languages plus Englische of which I am fairly adept.

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    1. When you get to 350 you can manage pretty well in normal circumstances. Deutsch (German) is presently evolving into Denglisch a mixture of English and German beloved by tabloids and teenagers. There is a kind of written German called Rechtschreibung which nobody understands or wants to understand except those who teach it.

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  4. Macron wants French to be the EU official language. He wants the EU army. He is failing at home. I wonder where he will end up. He is not used to not getting own way.

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    1. Haven't seen the French first lady for a while. Not in the cellar is she?

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  5. Of course the exit agreement is published in all the official EU languages. The English version can easily be found. I find it interesting that many bloggers express opinions in it, but clearly have not read it.

    One blogger stated that she hadn’t voted for a deal she had voted for out. When asked about how she would deal with the Irish birder she first stated she wasn’t going to debate and then deleted posts.

    Unfortunately, my experience is that most of those who voted Leave seem unable to explain how they would deal with any of the obvious difficulties.

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    1. I don't know anybody who has read it. It's nearly 600 pages long. That's why we have experts and spin doctors working for us. I'd be surprised if Jeanclaude himself has even read it. Farage says the EU phoned the UK PM at 4:15 am and she went and signed the damn thing. Nobody would have signed it unless they had been defeated in war, he said.
      Fake news or not? Who knows? If it's a nacht und nebel deal - a foggy night contract - nobody knows anything except those who need to know.

      We shall see what we shall see. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.



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