A few years ago, when I worked for CEN (the European Committee for Standardization) headquartered in Brussels, I was asked to do a speech in English in front of my fellow colleagues of various origins and nationalities. The subject of this speech was set by the Communication Manager of the CEN Management Center: anything that I could teach or which could be of interest to my colleagues. It was a kind of team building session, also a nice way for me to brush up my rusty skills of doing a speech (which I had not done for quite some time indeed).
I remembered that I had read a very interesting and informative book (in French) by Henriette Walter in the frame of my thesis at Mons University's Faculty of Translation and Interpreting - School of International Interpreters. Walter's book is entitled "L'aventure des langues en Occident". I decided to prepare a presentation of the book for my CEN colleagues. They were mainly project managers, technical editors, database administrators or executive assistants.
Manx, Italian, German, Sardinian, Portuguese, Dutch or Schwyzerdütsch... Over one hundred languages, either regional or international, taught or unknown, official or not, are spoken in Europe today. Henriette Walter, an expert linguist and passionate explorer, leads us through this book in the heart of the prodigious and rich world of languages. She invites us to take part in a real adventure which began 7000 years ago. The different episodes of this adventure are marked by migrations, conquests, commercial exchanges, trades or even edicts determining the lives and deaths of idioms.
Through the pages of "L'aventure des langues en Occident", you will discover the various names given to the different kinds of Italian pasta, the Viking origin of "rugby", the linguistic reason why Germans never interrupt each other when they talk, ... And many more secrets and surprises about the languages which actually boast civilizations.
Oh, by the way... My speech was a real hit! As a matter of fact, some of the attendees, whom I recently got in touch with, asked me again for more information about Henriette Walter's book.
Reference of the book (in French): "L'aventure des langues en Occident" by Henriette Walter, Robert Laffont, 1994.
Comments
Post a Comment