Translations wanted

[nancylebov]

I was contemplating the classic slogan which says in Latin "If you can read this, you're overeducated", and I have an upgrade*:

(In Latin) If you can read this, you have begun your education.
(In Sanskrit) Now, how about Sanskrit?

The second language doesn't have to be Sanskrit, but I think it should be a major real world language that doesn't use the Roman alphabet.

*I don't believe there's such a thing as overeducation.

Comments

[wings13.livejournal.com]

*EG* Hebrew! Actually, Japanese might be good but I don't speak/read/or write Japanese ecxcept for a phrase or two. I can do the Hebrew for you though.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I realize Hebrew meets the specs, but I'm concerned that it isn't exotic enough. Any opinions?

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

how about arabic or cyrillic?

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

or - to stick with a classics theme, good ol' Greek!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Greek is *definitely* not exotic enough.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

I bow to your decision but respectfully (and sadly) submit that it may be more exotic than you think.

Latin is still taught in various schools. Greek is not. I don't know of any public schools in a good portion of at least 4 states that are teaching Greek.

In fact, I just did a few quick google searches.

For NY state regents exams: (where I grew up)Languages Other Than English: French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, & Spanish.
Virginia doesn't have tests for Italian or Hebrew but haas the others listed above.
MD doesn't appear to have a relevant standard.
PA hasn't finalized theirs - although the current listing on their sight says they'll have the option for Greek.

I salute you for living in a properly civilized state though. meanwhile, I shall continue to decry the state of american education. *sigh*

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Greek wasn't offered at my high school--I think it was just French, German, and Latin.

However, it isn't hard for a reasonably curious compulsive reader (that is, me) to pick up at least most of the alphabet and a number of words, even without making an effort to learn anything about Greek. While I've also picked up a very few Chinese words and fewer characters, Chinese is much more remote from English.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Greek is *definitely* not exotic enough.

But Linear B (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B) is.

-- Steve slipped up in his first draft and wrote "Linear A". Bonus marks for anybody doing that translation.

More suggestions

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Aramaic? It's the traditional language for language snobs who already know Latin, Greek and Hebrew and want to read stuff in "the original". It's also very distinctive visually (depending on which alphabet you use) -- unlike Sanskrit, where very similar script is in modern-day use (for other languages).

It'll probably be easier to find a translator for it than Sanskrit. (Would that I still had my old Sanskrit textbooks...)

I don't believe there's such a thing as overeducation.

That's a nice button by itself...

Re: More suggestions

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

"Appeals to language snobs" is a plus.

From what I've heard, Chinese would also be good in that regard.

Thanks for the clue in re "I don't believe there's such a thing as overeducation."

Re: More suggestions

[dhole.livejournal.com]

Of course, there are a fairly wide range of Aramaics; you'd probably want something like Syriac, rather than the Aramaic of the Talmud.

Sumerian or some of the other languages of the Ancient Near East might be good; it's the sort of thing that serious students of language will probably have at least bumped into.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

А теперь, как насчёт руского языка?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and as a result of moderately aggressive googling, I was able to find out that you're talking about a really obscure language, though apparently the rest of the text is in Russian. Or is [name of obscure language left as a puzzle for the reader] similar enough to Russian that a Russian-to-English translator could handle the rest of the sentence?

[nwhyte]

Ah, so someone else got there before me. But it's just a bog-standard Russian phrase exhorting you to learn Russian!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was being too clever. Instead of posting the Russian dialect(?) that turned up the first time, I left it as a puzzle for the reader, and now I can't get it back, though I think the name was something like Roslyn. This time, babelfish gave me "roskogo", and I can't find anything about it.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Weirdly enough, when I babelfished it, the name of the language didn't get translated, and when I googled it into submission (or at least hoped I had), it came through as Ruslyn or somesuch but I can't seem to find that result again. When I checked whatever it was in Wikipedia, it seemed to be either a dialect of Russian, or a closely related language.

This time around, it came through as Rusdrogo(sp?), and I couldn't find out anything about it.

[nwhyte]

Russian!

[cellio]

I would do one of the Chinese languages. It's got a lot of native speakers and yet is opaque to most of us -- which seems like a good candidate for a comment on educational needs.

Mind, I am insufficiently educated to be able to help...