As I sit and prepare for our congregation’s Community Seder, I’ve found myself engrossed in and enjoying this wonderful volume by Murray Spiegel and Rickey Stein… 300 Ways to ask the Four Questions.
I met Murray at the URJ Biennial this year in Washington D.C. and was impressed not only by the sheer number of languages they’ve collected, but also by the creativity that’s gone into making the four questions available in such a breadth of choices.
Here in Fresno, a great many languages are spoken. Spanish… of course. Several Native American languages… okay, that’s pretty impressive. How about sign language… “which one?” Murray asked. They have American Sign Language (ASL), Israeli Sign, French Sign and UK English Sign all on the included DVD.
How about both Late and Middle Egyptian, Ugaritic (yeah, I studied that one in rabbinic school - It's an ancient Canaanite language), Esperanto, Binary (in case you were wondering whether these guys are geeks) and if including Binary doesn't seal your judgment... yes, they included Klingon.
The DVD includes sound files.
They've included information about each of the languages and a brief bio on the translators. Theodore Bikel read and translated the Yiddish as well as writing an introduction to the volume.
(Rickey Stein, Theodore Bikel and Murray Spiegel)
Here’s what impressed me most… when I told Murray that one of the largest minority groups here in our valley is the Hmong population, he said that they didn’t have it in the book, but they were working on it… and sure enough… a few weeks after the Biennial, he sent me an email with the Hmong translation. Amazing!
Yog ua li cas hmo no yuav txawv txhua hmo?
(Why is this night different from all other nights?)
Yes, there’s no way I could figure out how to pronounce it, so they sent me a sound file as well.
(It's read by Mia Lor, the main translator.)
Buy a copy of the book! I bought two.
300 Ways to Ask the Four Questions: From Zulu to Abkhaz
