Paris: Landmarks, Monuments, Museums

More linguistically-interesting things I saw in Paris.

A monument to peace within view of the Eiffel Tower. I can't tell how well the word "peace" is rendered in all these languages but the Chinese (和平) is at least legible. Not the best execution but well-intentioned. (By the way, I didn't see English anywhere among these languages! Hmmm...)

Louis Braille, inventor of the raised system of dots for the blind, is entombed beneath the Panthéon. This is one of the rare monuments that actively encourages visitors to touch and interact with it: a  bust, electronically illuminated Braille inscriptions, and audio recordings.

A similar installment for the blind can be found in the Pompidou Center. Here the Braille inscription and a textured pattern allow the visitor to appreciate a work of visual art.

Inside the Louvre Museum there's a series of signs that lay down "les règles de l'art" [the rules of art], i.e. what you're forbidden to do inside (e.g. no touching artworks, no flash photography etc.). I like the humorous and non-verbal aspect of these signs:

And, finally, a trilingual notice in the Palace of Versailles:

Paris: Neighborhoods (Jewish, Japanese, Latin)

This blog entry goes through a few distinctive neighborhoods in Paris: le Marais (the old Jewish Quarter), le quarter japonais (Japanese Quarter, around la Rue Sainte-Anne), and le quartier latin (Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne - so called because university scholars used to speak Latin).

Here's a typical storefront in the Marais advertising merchandise in Hebrew and French. Incidentally, the word "Librarie" doesn't mean "library" - it means "bookshop" (the French word for library is "bibliotheque").

This excellent restaurant, "l'As du Fallafel," advertises its signature attractions in Hebrew: falafel (פלפל) and shwarma (השאוורמה). It's worth noting that the origin of falafel is disputed; some would claim it is Arab in origin. Whatever its origin, the food is delicious.

A closer view of the take-out order window reveals playing card aces (the word "As" in the restaurant name means "ace") and the motto of the establishment is "Toujour Imité Jamais Égalé" (Always Imitated, Never Equaled) - a nice jab at all the rival restaurants that have opened up nearby.

Along the Rue Sainte-Anne there's a stretch of Japanese restaurants - here's the menu for Naniwa-Ya, which probably has the best Japanese noodle soup I've ever eaten. The Japanese menu reads in the traditional manner, up-down and left-to-right. Oddly, the menu uses the letters YA rather than the kanji (character) 屋 or や (ya).

On one of the walls inside the Sorbonne I saw this sign advertising a photo competition for an international language study program. "No entiendo" is Spanish for "I don't understand," and the French translation ("Je ne comprends pas") is the URL for the website. I find it ironic that the acronym ESL (English as a Second Language) doesn't need any translation.

Inside one of the bathrooms in the university, some pedantic graffiti. One person demands that the maintenance staff replace the hand towels, and another person corrects the first person's grammatical error, correcting "essuies-main" to the proper French form "essuie-mains" (hand-towels).

Florence: Strange Stuff

This is my final entry about Florence - saving some of the best stuff for last!

Sign outside a door on the train into Italy. This looks to me like a really bad case of inter-linguistic "telephone" - the Italian was first translated into French, and then the French was used as the basis for the (pretty unintelligible) English translation.

A trilingual sign (Italian, English, Spanish) warns people not to buy counterfeit goods. The Italian and Spanish say "it's forbidden to buy fake merchandise or knock-offs (imitation items) from unlicensed vendors" but the English truncates things a bit. Note that "abusivi" doesn't mean "abusive" but rather "unauthorized."

An old clock inside the Duomo. It's a 24-hour clock in with hours as Roman numerals, plus the one (I) is in the 6 position and the hand moves counter-clockwise.

Hotel sign says "breakfast" in Italian, English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and Japanese. A few diacritical marks are missing in the European languages (e.g. should read Frühstück, petit déjeuner and pequeno almoço) and the sign gives the romanized pronunciation of the Japanese characters 朝食 but overall this one is pretty good.

Lovely museum across the street. "Serial Killer" needs no translation, but "Jack lo Squartatore" [Jack the Ripper] does. (Why not "Giacomo lo Squartatore," I wonder?)

Florence: Churches and Museums

Now for some more signs from Florence - these all come from churches or museums.

Ascending to the dome of the Duomo. I like the graffiti "conversations" that have ensued around this sign. Note someone has crossed out the name HUGO from the Spanish "Hugo y [and] Laura" and replaced it with LAURA ERIC underneath.

Some writing on the top of the dome of the Duomo. For some reason a lot of Korean and Chinese inscriptions. Nice little acrostic involving the names Alex and Andrew (center).

Writing on walls is, of course, an old practice. Here's a 17th century inscription on the way down.

Ten Commandments motif on the doors exiting the Duomo. You can just make out (most of) the Hebrew text of the first 5 commandments.

The translations inside the crypt of the Medici Chapel are mostly unremarkable - but it did strike me as odd how certain words were in bold. I suppose if you were in a hurry or something this could help you scan the text more efficiently.

Lastly, an idiosyncratic sign in the garden of the Franciscan monastery in Fiesole. The Latin NON EST TOTO SANCTIOR MONS (and Italian equivalent, underneath) mean "in the whole world there is no mountain more holy"). Curiously, the word "welcome" (benvenuto / benvenuta) is grammatically inflected in both its masculine and feminine forms (welcoming the male and female reader equally?). The icons for all the forbidden activities are cute.

Florence Edition: Dante

It's been months since I posted anything new here - much of the summer was spent away from DC. Just for fun, I'll be blogging about a few of the places I visited. I start with Florence.

The theme for this blog entry about Florence is Dante: signs of this renowned poet (d. 1321) can be found all throughout the city.

In the Duomo, this spectacular painting (Domenico di Michelino, 1465) depicts the poet gazing longingly at the city of Florence (he wrote The Divine Comedy while in exile from his beloved home). On the left you see the Inferno and center is Mount Purgatory (as described in the Purgatorio). The celestial spheres of Paradiso are above. This painting beautifully transforms (translates, if you will) the grand scope of the poet's allegory into a clear visual format - although it depicts a city with architecture that Dante would not have known (the dome did not exist as such in his day).

A detail of Dante's book reveals the opening lines of his poem. A little hard to read, since 1. the text appears in all capital letters with no word separations and 2. the spelling differs from most modern editions. The first page (left) reads: "Nel mezzo del chamino di nostra vita / Mi ritrova per una selva scura che la diritta via era smarita" [In the middle of our life's journey / I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight path was lost].

Many other signs evoking the works of Dante are strategically placed around the city; e.g., at one point along the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) crossing the Arno River, we see "in sul passo d'Arno" [at the crossing of the Arno]. Mildly interesting sign, I guess - but without any real context for the quote it seems pretty random. I wonder if most people even notice it.

One place of particular interest for Dante readers is the Casa di Dante, where the poet (most likely) once resided. There's much to love about this wall display - not only does it have a nice diagram of all of Dante's circles of hell, but it also manages to squeeze in the entire text of The Divine Comedy on a single panel in tiny font! And how did those footprints get on the wall?

A Florence location that has become a curious site of pilgrimage is the Chiesa di Santa Margherita de' Cerchi, which is allegedly near the place where Dante first met his beloved Beatrice Portinari (i.e., the subject of his early poetry and, later, his guide in the Paradiso). The entrance sign informs visitors that the church dates from 1032 and Beatrice was buried here.

Inside the church, a painting: "Dante meets Beatrice P., accompanied by her mother Cilia de' Caponsacchi and Monna Tessa" [i.e., nurse in the Portinari household]. In the Vita Nuova, Dante claims he met Beatrice walking down the street with two ladies and this encounter inspired him to write poetry about her. This painting seems to take some liberties here, as Dante claims he was 18 at the time of that meeting (this Dante looks much older).

At the tomb of Beatrice, visitors from around the world leave handwritten letters to her (most of these are written by women who are seeking love and asking Beatrice to intercede). I can't make out all the text here, but the one on the right is in Korean; the one of the left (with lipstick) reads "Dear Beatrice."

The "letters for Beatrice" phenomenon is mysterious and surprisingly recent in origin. For more on Dante's life and work (emphasis on The Divine Comedy), see this excellent website.

P.S. There is a Florence-DC connection I should note! In Meridian Park, you can see a statue of Dante clearly based on the painting in the Duomo (or something very much like it):

This portrayal of Dante looks pretty familiar. I see one major difference between this sculpture and the Duomo painting, though. The Dante in the Duomo holds an open book, but this Dante has his book closed.

Paris: Randomness

Last blog entry about Paris.

Displayed in a storefront window, this T-shirt offers a ironic, snooty twist on the "I [HEART] PARIS" cliché: "J' [aime] rein: Je suis Parisien" [I love nothing: I'm a Parisian].

Variation on the theme: I [SPACE INVADER] PARIS. Who knows what this is about? Strange thing is, there were lots of these signs all over the city.

In a little park, a bunch of cursive vowels and random vocalic word balloons. I got the sense this was supposed to represent the childlike joy one gets from playing outdoors, but I could totally be making that up.

On the Métro, I spotted this ad targeting people who want to learn English. The name and American flag/tongue thing strike me as incredibly cheesy. I'm also not sure "Wall Street" English is the best name - yes it conveys the idea of "practical" real-world English, but Wall Street doesn't have the best reputation as of late.

Another weird French take on American culture: this graphic novel (?) for sale in a storefront window reads I.R.$. (dollar sign replacing S). Sort of makes tax collection look glamorous and exciting!

P.S. I've just learned that there is Wikipedia about the "Space Invader" artist, who has "invaded" many cities - but Paris remains the most saturated.

P.P.S. For more on the "I [HEART] WHATEVER" motif, see this posting.

Bar Mitzvah at Temple Micah

About a week ago, I attended the bar mitzvah of the son of one of my colleagues. Here are some images and (language-related) reflections! [Click any image to enlarge.]

Above: scriptural texts, commentaries, and prayerbooks on the shelves in the sanctuary of Temple Micah. The wood panels on the walls are inscribed with sayings from the Tanakh.

Here, excerpts from this day's designated portion of the Torah. The boy (man) of honor read aloud some lovely passages from Leviticus 14 concerning leprosy and bodily fluids. Note the direction of reading in the Hebrew text goes from left to right (see the page numbers at the bottom).

The layout of text in the scriptural commentary books is more complex that just two columns of text (see above). The Hebrew reads right to left, and English left to right, and in the notes you sometimes have to switch directions mid-sentence.

Some of us in attendance were mildly horrified by the glosses on the left hand page of the reading from the Haftarah.

The actual service was quite lengthy - and I have to say I never quite "caught on" trying to follow along in the prayer book. Temple Micah uses the Reform Siddur, and as you can see in the above each page includes the Hebrew text (#2), a phonetic transliteration in Roman letters (#6), an English translation (#7), and accompanying prayers (items on left-hand page). Looking at all theses glosses, finding aids, and text moving in different directions made me feel like I was navigating a complex website! For an informative blog posting on this prayerbook's layout, see this online user's guide (the image above comes from that website).

This was a fantastic experience, and I'm glad I was able to take part in the day's celebrations.

P.S. I was very intrigued by the way the Divine Name appears in the prayerbook. Apparently there are many different practices here, but I noticed that during the services everyone was pronouncing the abbreviated name (written יי ) as "Adonai" (= Lord). For more on the pronunciation and writing of the Divine Name, see this entry in this online Jewish Encyclopedia.

P.P.S. For more on the Divine Name in Hebrew, you might also consult this detailed explanation (strangely enough, from a website for Christians).

Chaucer in DC (Modern English Translation)

Yesterday I popped into the DC Public Library, SE Branch and noticed an intriguing decorative motif: April-themed lines from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales adorned the bookshelves (original Middle English along one set of bookcases, and a modern English translation on the other). Above, a snippet from the original text. Let's take a closer look at the translation, shall we?

"What that Aprille with his shoures soote/The droght of March hath perced to the roote" = When in April the SWEET SHOWERS FALL/And pierce the drought of March to the root, & all [I don't know why random words are in italics or capital letters. Overall it's pretty good; interesting that "the sweet showers" are now the grammatical subject, not April itself (himself)].

"And bathed every veyne in swich licour/Of which vertu engendred is the flour" = The veins are BATHED IN LIQUOR of such power/As brings about the engendering of the flower [seems pretty good - nice translation of "vertu" as "power" in order to make the lines rhyme].

"Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth/Inspired hath in every holt and heeth" = When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath/Exhales AN AIR IN EVERY GROVE and heath [the words "breath" and "heath" don't rhyme in modern English, but otherwise this works].

"The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne/Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne" = UPON THE TENDER SHOOTS, and the young sun/His HALF-COURSE IN THE SIGN of the Ram HAS RUN [the "in the sign of the Ram" clarifies things for modern readers but the capital letters have gone crazy!].

"And smale foweles maken melodye,/That slepen al the nyght with open ye" = And the small fowl are making melody/That SLEEP AWAY THE NIGHT with open eye [here "melody" and "eye" no longer rhyme - not quite sure why "fowls" or "birds" wasn't used].

"(So priketh hem Nature in hir courages)/Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages" = (So nature pricks them AND THEIR HEART ENGAGES)/Then PEOPLE LONG TO GO ON pilgrimages [creative translation here; "engages" works relatively well to set up the word "pilgrimages"].

"And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,/To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondy londes" = And PALMERS LONG TO SEEK the stranger strands/Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands [the phrase "stranger strands" and insertion of "saints" here is slightly odd, but I like the reincorporation of longing in this couplet].

"And specially from every shires ende/Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende" = And specially, from every shire's end/Of England, down to Canterbury THEY WEND [I think it would have made more sense to translate "specially" as "especially" or "particularly"].

Overall, quite good - some awkward moments, but the modernization does attempt to preserve the original rhyme pattern.

P.S. Note that the final couplet to the opening lines has been omitted: "The hooly bilsful martir for to seke,/That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke" [To seek the holy blissful martyr, who has helped them (pilgrims/palmers) whenever they were sick]. Not quite sure why these last two lines have been left out. Did the library simply run out of shelves? This is a public library, and I wonder (this being DC) if the lines were left out in order to preserve a more secular, nonsectarian theme and avoid the appearance of endorsing any particular religion.