Re: CHAT: EU allumettes (was: Re: THEORY/CHAT: Talmy, Jackendoff and Matchboxes

The most interesting product usually sold in France,
from a linguistic point of view, could be the "Kinder
Surprise". They are kind of hollow chocolate eggs for
children, and inside there is some small plastic
gadget you have to build yourself. There is also a
rolled paper notice in an incredible number of
languages, explaining that the toy is not fit for
children under 3 years, because they could swallow the
small pieces. If i remember well, there is Kazakh and
Azeri among them. I really should buy myself a Kinder
Surprise again (this is not a hidden ad). What's
interesting is that, before every text, they give a
code for the language used, for ex RUS for Russian. I
don't know if there are really normalized codes, but
anyway you can easily understand what language this
is.

I also just bought an electric outfit made in the
People's Republic of China, and the notice is in 12
languages too (excluding Chinese). That makes 130
pages, while only 10 of them concern me directly (the
French ones). Who said: save trees ?


--- Danny Wier <dawiertx@...> wrote:
> From: "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>
>
> > Danny Wier said:
> >
> > > Incidentally, Ahmed Tea of London marks its
> boxes in thirteen languages:
> > > English, German, French, Spanish, Italian,
> Czech, Portuguese, Polish,
> > > Russian, Ukrainian, Qazaq*,
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > *I might be wrong on this one; it's definitely a
> Cyrillic-alphabet
> Turkic
> > > language, and it's not Uzbek. Could be Tatar,
> Kyrgyz or Turkmen.
> >
> > Post a sample. Might be Azeri if it reminds you of
> Turkish and is not
> Uzbek.
>
> It's not Azeri, because what I have has Cyrillic K
> with descender /q/ and G
> with horizontal stroke /R/. Azeri has K, G and Ch
> with a small interior
> vertical stroke, exclusive among Cyrillic-script
> languages. The text in
> question is in three places (Latinized) given with
> the original English:
>
> On the ingredients side: Qaraqat kosylghan shaj
> 'tea, blackcurrant
> flavouring'
> On the opposite side: TAZA SALMAGHY 'NET WEIGHT'
> On the bottom: Saktanalatyn uaqyty: Kyryna caracyz
> 'For best before: See
> side panel.'
>
> It's not Kyrgyz either, I don't think, since the
> altered K and G characters
> aren't used (uvularization is implied by the back
> vowel). That narrows it
> down to Kazakh and Tatar, both very similar West
> Turkic languages, unless
> there's more it could be. (Nowadays Azeri and
> Turkmen are more often written
> in Latin characters.)
>
> I could've given the Cyrillic text, but it would be
> a Unicode issue there,
> and not everybody has a font with Central Asian
characters.


=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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