WE NEED ALL YOUR PARTICIPATION HERE !!!
 

Seems like I need to do this again, since we have a new Forum!
INSCRIPTIONS, LANGUAGES & TRANSLATIONS ! To be honest with you I am not fully satisfied how many great threads are ending and I cannot stress enough the importance of our lingvistical skills .
Sorry to impose by capitalising my posting's title I don`t mean to patronise but I am trying to awaken awareness and pursue any member to let us know what can he SPEAK, READ,INTERPRET or TRANSLATE, so we can further know and promote those who we can turn to help in these matters when needed, because too many good postings end too soon and too incomplete. Besides English, YOU that feels like helping here is how you can help: what languages can you speak, read or interpret (do not be shy, YOU DON`T HAVE TO BE FLUENT! )or what non Latin-alphabets can you read. Mostly I feel we lack covering the area from Turkey to India, Persia to Sri Lanka as far as geography goes but everything is welcome (I for example speak no Asian language whatsoever). Phrases like ,, I don`t speak myself but my wife can read Sanskrit and I have a good friend that is fluent in Farsi'' work very well... At the end of the day thats what we are : a group of friends with a common bond !
So I`ll start my self this WHO`S WHO saga :

Radu Transylvanicus :

ROMANIAN, ITALIAN, FRENCH, SPANISH, HUNGARIAN, GERMAN, LATIN.
I can also translate old GLAGOLITIC and CYRILLIC texts.

P.S. Please resume to just mention name and languages and QUICK NOTE: English, Canadian, Texan, Southern, Cockney slang, Aussie, Ebonic, Irish, Kiwi, Jamaican, BritSpeak, Scottish English, Pig Latin, Sign language, North Shore Pidgin, New Yoowk Eetalian, Espanglish, Creole, back talk, Valley Talk, Congress talk, medical talk, law talk, Sou`Afrikan , Oyster Bay and Sean Connery accents do not qualify so CHEERS, but WE GOT THEM COVERED !!! Moderators will act as executioners in case of misbahaving and deviations !

My deepest sympathy to all individuals willing to participate and help in this project !

good one radu!

i'm fluent in hawaiian pidgin :D . as for foreign language, i can speak two dialects in pilipino; tagalog and hiligaynon (ilonggo)...

I can usually help with translating Japanese sword
inscriptions. I don't speak it or read it well, but
can usually get the swordsmith, location and date.
Also read (and speak) a little English :-)

Rich S

I can help with Danish text if anybody needs it. ;)

German to English only, but I have decent knowledge of attribution of Ottoman coins. (might not be of too much help)

I can translate Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
Also some French and German, but I suspect that other members are more fluent in those languages.

Michael

I do art and science fluenty, but I still have trouble with English as I am a native Long Islander. Have take 2nd year Russian five times and still can't say much more than ordering a beer! However, I do have contacts who can read Old Persian and some dead Central Asian languages. Speaking of which, they recently found the first Sogdian sword in Central Asia. How do they know? It has a Sogdian inscription!
I would also like to make the point that being able to read/speak a current language is not the same as being able to read old or specialized texts/inscriptions. So care must be taken. :)

Oh, and Hubby speaks Cockney rhyming slang.

Polish of course! I can handle some other languages too, but can't take responsibility for my skills ;), so let's stay at Polish. If someone will need help, go on and ask me!

I'll take care of Russian and Eastern Slavic languages (Cyrillic based). Can also read arabic characters, but no language skills there.

Italian, here. Weak French, Spanish and Latin, too.

Spanish and Catalan, from almost all times, and English.
In an emergency, I could make myself understood in French, Italian and Portugese, but not much beyond the always useful "Don't shoot please!". Have good friends native Italian and French speakers, though.

Bulgarian, which is a very rare language on ethnographic weapons, but it is the only one I feel comfortable enough reading and translating. Of course, I can read everything in Cyrillic, but Russian and Serbo-Croatian would be better left for someone else to translate and I can help only if there is nobody else around.

Languages: English, Filipino, Spanish.
Dialects: Chavacano, Tausug, Cebuano.

:)

Some Spanish, German, French, classical Greek, Biblical Hebrew once, American Sign Language (not much used on sword inscriptions however - not sure why? :confused: ).

I'm of no help personally, but due to the heavy Greek origins of the Tarpon Springs area I have many aquaintences who are usually happy to translate for me.
Mike

Written and spoken mostly English, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. May be able to translate (Quranic scripts), Arabic and Persian talismanic scripts...

If I can help, I would but I'm not an expert. ;)

Nederlands, Deutsch, English

French Italian to English (with probably some small mistakes :) )
My father can translate any japanese smith signature in romanji

I'm fluent in Italian, French, and English and can translate from one to another at proofreading level. My Spanish is quite good, and German is just fair.

Fluent in arabic, only if written in readable text.

I'm fluent in English (with a slight scouse accent :)) and Arabic.

Turkish and some other Turkic dialects like Azeri and Uzbek. But I cant read Ottoman alphabet. I need somebody to convert the trancription . Then I can do the translation.

The Ottomans used the Arabic alphabet, I can read Arabic, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem provided the inscription is reasonably clear.

Burmese?
 

Can anyone out there read Burmese, or know someone who does?

Hear, hear! :D

Hi Radu,
I reply a little bit late, but i just wanted to say that you can cound on me and Yiannis for Greek.

Hi Radu!

All I know is how to read and translate dates from the Islamic calender to the Gregorian/western calender and visa versa. Hopefully this can help some how, also my father speks very good german, and my grandfather speaks fluent Ukrainian. Finally I have a freind who can read Hebrew.

P.S.- I am still learning arabic as a second language.

If it may be of use I speak, read and write Indonesian, English, and Javanese, including krama hinggil. I also understand Sundanese and Balinese with a little Maduranese. I can read Javanese script slowly and understand a some old Javanese / Kawi.

Salam.