Tags
applied linguistics, blogiversary, endangered languages, inspiration, languages, linguistics, polyglossic
Dear blog readers,
Today Polyglossic officially turns one year old! On March 5, 2012, I published my very first post. This year we’ve explored endangered languages, applied linguistics, ancient tongues, writing systems, and even a mystery or two. I’ve been excited to share featured speakers of ten different languages. And during this year this blog has been visited by readers by 113 different countries. (Isn’t the internet astonishing??)
Today, to celebrate, I have created a little pop quiz! Here is how you say “Happy Birthday” in ten different languages; the multiple-choice options are countries I’ve had blog visitors from this year. In which of the countries would you be most likely to hear the greeting? (Please note: I have sneakily chosen transliterated text so you don’t have a different script as a hint)
- Yom Huledet Sameakh
a. Maldives b. Israel c. Cyprus d. Hungary - ¡Feliz cumpleaños!
a. Spain b. El Salvador c. Ecuador d. Argentina - S dniom roždenija!
a. Croatia b. Greece c. Russia d. Malaysia - Til hamingju með afmælið
a. Iceland b. Finland c. Lithuania d. Latvia - Selamat ulang tahun
a. South Africa b. Indonesia c. Slovakia d. Cambodia - otanjōbi omedetō gozaimasu
a. Japan b. Hong Kong c. Myanmar d. Marshall Islands - eid mīlad sa’aīd
a. Libya b. Lebanon c. Morocco d. Egypt - Gëzuar Ditëlindjen
a. Azerbaijan b. Turkey c. Ukraine d. Albania - Alles Gute zum Geburtstag
a. Belgium b. Austria c. Germany d. Switzerland - Breithlá sona duit
a. France b. Poland c. Ireland d. Malta
All text here comes from the good people at Omniglot. If you click through you’ll find audio files for most of them!
Answers:
- b. Israel (listen to some Hebrew here!)
- e. all of the above 🙂 Here is our featured speaker of Argentinian Spanish!
- c. Russia
- a. Iceland
- b. Indonesia (our first featured speaker shared an Indonesian poem here)
- a. Japan (and here is a poem in Japanese!)
- e. all of the above. Another trick! This is Modern Standard Arabic, so although all of the countries listed here would have their local equivalents, this version would be understood in all of them.
- d. Albania
- e. oh now I’m just not being fair at all. This is the phrase in German, which is an official language in all four of these countries! (Here is our featured speaker of German)
- c. Ireland (listen to some spoken Irish here!)
* * *
Thank you everyone who has visited, read, shared, and commented. It’s been a wonderful year and it has been a joy to get to share my love of languages with this little part of the internet. Like I say in my “About” page, Polyglossic describes a world that is rich, vibrant, and robust in linguistic diversity. I’m looking forward to another year of encouraging and celebrating that world.
Happy birthday, blog!