Thursday, October 19, 2006

Romansch and Elmer Fudd

So there are four official languages of Switzerland. French, German, Italian, and Romansch (crazy, right?)What, you ask, is Romansch?

The Wikipedia page on Romansch is here, but in general, Romansch sounds like a language that I would have tried to assemble when I was 10 years old and playing with Legos. For example:

  • buna saira - good evening
  • a pli tard - see you later
  • gratulazions - congratulations

Any of that sound familiar? Remotely like Italian, French, or maybe even English (okay, I'll give you English because they're both based on Latin). Microsoft is even investing in figuring out the thing so they can get it into XP as a language. They should go the Google way at the same time and go for the Elmer Fudd localization as well.

Article on Swissinfo here.
Google localization for Romansch is here.

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