I've noticed these multilingual obelisks around town for a while but yesterday was the first time I actually stopped to take a close look at a few of them. Each pole bears a different message of peace on each side (typically "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in various languages).
Based on the shape of these objects, I had just assumed the poles were some sort of "DC thing" until I learned (online) that these are actually part of the Peace Pole Project, a larger movement to erect monuments like these worldwide.
From left to right: 1 = Monolingual pole, Foggy Bottom; 2 - 4 = Octolingual pole, William Penn House, Capitol Hill. In alphabetical order, the languages on the William Penn House pole are Arabic, Cherokee, Chinese (simplified), English, French, Hopi, Spanish (I'll leave it up to you to sort out which is which).
It's possible to custom order a peace pole on this website (including hexagonal ones!). See this website for more on the history of the peace pole project.
