Story in Trouw about a German teacher who can’t speak German. This wouldn’t be so freaky in jobs-for-the-boys Spain, where the most important requirement of a foreign language teacher in the public sector is that they have a bagful of certificates in the local languages. The result is that most foreign language teachers aren’t very…
On this Amazigh Dutch site, it’s argued that the Moroccan government made a crucial error in the dispute with Spain by using a spurious Arabic name, Laila, instead of the older Berber word, Tura, being prepared to weaken their claim rather than acknowledge Berber language rights. However, there are further views to be considered.
News that pornstar Dolly Buster used to work as a translator for the Bundesgrenzschutz, the old German federal border guards, reminds me vaguely of translation and interpreting’s original Mata Hari, Malinche, who got naked with, and told all her people’s secrets to stout Cortez. Or, as Mexican national mythology has it, parented the first Mexican…
Een fijn voorbeeld van het Nederspaans in het Geheugen van Nederland: ‘k Ben een onverschwartze Espagnolos Kijk naar mijn bolos, als roet zoo zwart Zie ik een aardig meisje met mijn blikkos Voel ik de prikkos, hier in mijn hart ‘k Ben van beroep torero in Sevilla Ik steek de bandrilla de stieren in d’r…
A few from Jonathan Faydi, who lives in one of my favourite towns. Dunkerk is Dutch for Dunechurch; Jesuit traitor Henry Garnet and other Gunpowder Plot conspirators awaited news of Guy Fawkes in an English one (usually spelled Dunchurch), evidently unaware of the danger of shifting sands.
The otherwise excellent Margaret Marks has ruined a peaceful Saturday afternoon by pointing out that St Columba was, apart from the first person to meet the Loch Ness monster, also on the wrong side of the first copyright case–or so says the Catholic Herald. Columcille copied a Jeromian psalter belonging to Finnian, King Diarmit made…
Abdou Diouf, “Secretary-General of la Francophonie and former President of Senegal”, responding to Chirac in the former organisation’s first meeting outside France, in a Ceausescu palace in Bucharest: the notion of culture from a US standpoint is understood to mean entertainment rather than the expression of peoples’ souls and identities. I’ve read quite a lot…