Re: Which language is this? (once again)

On 04/02/06, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> On 2/4/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> > Well, I found a copy of the flier online; this is the list:
> >
> >     * Entdecke das Leben
> >     * Ondek het Leven
> >     * Découvrez la vie
> >     * Odulaez zycie
> >     * I Bescubre la vida
> >     * Scopri la vita
> >     * apni jindgi trike fe banao
> >
> > The penultimate one does look like Italian, but the antepenultimate is
> > not quite Spanish (which would rather be "Descubre la vida").
>
> My guess is that it's Spanish, modulo some typos introduced by copying
> something in a language the copyist was not familiar with.
>
> (The one before that looks Polish to me, and I wouldn't be surprised
> to hear that it has errors, too -- "Odulaez" sounds really off to me.)


It is indeed mangled Polish, and I suspect the verb - the first word - has
been mangled by OCR software, too, as Mark suggests about the Spanish
example, or possibly by a copyist working from handwriting. I asked my
girlfriend what it should have been, and apparently it should be <odnaleźć>
(the last two letters are z-acute and c-acute, for those who can't see it).
That looks like a mistake that OCR software would be capable of.

For anyone curious about the pronunciation of the phrase in Polish, it'd
be something like [OdnalEz\ts\], though the [z\] to some degree becomes
voiceless by assimilation.





--
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of      Stephen Mulraney
matter at or near the earth's surface relative           ataltane@gmail.com
to other matter; second, telling other people
to do so.         --  Bertrand Russell

Reply