As Many Languages as I speak, so many times am I Man.
No, the word has nothing to do with "pollywog." It consists of
two Greek roots which mean "many" and "tongue." So a polyglot is a man or a
woman of many tongues; i.e., one who can handle more than two
languages. Someone who can handle only two languages is merely bilingual, from
Latin "twice" and "tongue."
Let me get the ball rolling with a bilingual poem, one of the two tongues
being English and the other German:
Tahiti, Tahiti,
See the coconut cuties mitout nottings on:
Here a leaf, da a leaf --
Hinten a corral reef --
Das ist doch kein climate for a middle-aged man!
No need to translate this one. As for the next piece, I am sure not
many people on the Net remember enough Latin to understand this
little piece -- it is really just the first stanza of a
longer poem by Horace -- so I'd better append a translation:
Eheu, fugaces, fugaces, Posthume,
Labuntur anni! Nec pietas moram
Rugis et instanti senectae
Adferet indomitaeque morti.
[Alas, how fleeting, Posthumus]
[the years slip by! Nor will your piety delay]
[wrinkles, or instant old age]
[or Indomitable Death.]
Here are some links to more Latin poetry. Latin only, no translations,
except for "The Aeneid," which is there in Latin and in English; ergo
primarily for people who know some Latin.
- Carmina Catulli
There is a "warning" inside the link to Latin Poetry that some
people might find some of the poems of Catullus lewd.
"Lewd" is taken very narrowly here by a stuffed shirt of a Latin
scholar who wants to cover his tracks. There is nothing lewd
in Catullus. He's the most delicate, the most refined, the most
light-of-touch, the most everything poet of love. Few poets
anywhere can hold a candle to him qua poet of love; there are
none finer -- not Petrarch himself,
not Dante, not Shakespeare, not Goethe.
The handful of people who have what it takes to read the Latin
poems will not be offended. Those who cannot read the Latin are
in no danger.
- Latin Poetry
- Aeneis
- The Aeneid
- the Vulgate
- 95 Theses
- Divina Commedia
- SpanishQuotesMusic
[And a witty, humorous little
piece by Goethe...]
Ich kann mich nicht bereden lassen.
Macht mir den Teufel nur nicht klein!
Ein Kerl, den alle Menschen hassen,
Der muss was sein.
[You cannot change my mind.
Don't you belittle the devil!
A fellow whom all the world hates
Must be something.]
Englisch af Naembaerch
To understand what follows, above all to appreciate how cleverly it has
been done and how funny it is, you must know both English and German.
Nembaersch
Immer wenn du meinst es geht nicht mehr
Kommt von irgendwo ein Lichtlein her.
[Just when you think you can't go on,
Somewhere a little light will come on.]
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