January 15, 2003

TWO GOODIES FROM La Grande Rousse.

1. Alphabets. You won't believe the wonderful stuff on this site. A couple of examples: evolution from Phoenecian to Latin, and language families (useful for checking on French language names: of the Dravidian languages, "Telougou" is obvious, but "Tamoul" and "Canara" are not). Just scroll down the sidebar and keep clicking.

2. A nice little Anthologie de la poésie, with poems both French and translated (including Wendell Berry and Meleager). The best-represented author is Victor Hugo, and there will be no "Hélas" from me*; if you can read French and haven't read "Booz endormi," do so at once. The line "Tout reposait dans Ur et dans Jerimadeth" contains the pure essence of poetry.
*When Gide was asked who in his opinion was the greatest poet in the French language, he responded: "Victor Hugo, alas!"

Posted by languagehat at January 15, 2003 12:24 PM
Comments

Brilliant - always like a bit of alphabeticality.

Is it Uzbekistan where they are using three sets now? Soviet Cyrillic. Ataturk-style Latin, and Islamicist Arabic? May a hundred squiggles bloom!

Posted by: mark at January 15, 2003 05:32 PM

By the way, though you restored the original page look now - I'd just like to say, the deviant one was not that bad in my view!

This older one is better, but the other was not as much of a disaster as you seemed to think....

Posted by: mark at January 15, 2003 05:34 PM

M is for Marvelous.

Posted by: Gideon Strauss at January 15, 2003 07:17 PM

Thanks, Mark -- I appreciate the comforting words, but here's what thisclassicallife.com had to say:

"In other news, if this kind fellow wouldn't mind turning down the font size a touch, I just might become hooked."

"This kind fellow" was, alas, me.

Posted by: language hat at January 15, 2003 07:44 PM

Glad my little discoveries pleased you ! ;)) (hope my English here is ok...I understand it very well but write it very badly ;((

Posted by: grande rousse at January 16, 2003 07:33 PM

Mais voyons, c'est du baratin! Pas de problème avec l'anglais. Et je suis ravi de vous voir ici...

Posted by: language hat at January 16, 2003 08:38 PM