Playing with Languages #
I’m a sucker for both Correspondent’s Diaries and languages which means I was quite enamored wtih the one The Economist ran last week. A tidbit:
Russians are inordinately proud of their tongue’s complexity. Friends have told me in all earnestness that they think Shakespeare might be better in Russian. in Moscow, a taxi driver attempted to prove the point by asking me to consider the words written next to the date on a carton of milk.
In Russian this is an orotund, literary phrase—a direct translation, in fact, of the French à consommer de préférence avant. “Zhelatel’no upotrebit’ do”, repeated the driver, rolling his tongue around the words and lifting a hand from the steering wheel to trace their curvaceous cadences. “It is beautiful, cultured. And in your language?” He puckered his mouth sourly. “Best bee-for!”