2013-10-29

Istoria Naturalъ

Another strange find on Google Books: Natural History in Romanian in... Cyrillic script! We are not talking about the Moldovian Soviet Socialist Republic: rather, the year is 1837 and the country is [Western] Moldova (Iași - Ешiй) under the Ottoman domination!

The language of the work is described as "Лимба Ромънѣскъ" (Romanian language) in Romanian, or "langue Valaque" Wallachian language) in French.

Apparently, a rather old-fashioned looking Cyrillic alphabet was the standard for Romanian until ca. 1860.

2013-10-24

Mësojmë Kinezishte!

I was a bit surprised to find out that, forty years later, China Radio International still has an Albanian service, complete with a web site. Included, naturally enough, are Chinese lessons for Albanian speakers (Mësojmë Kinezishte).

This is how you'd offer your business card, in Chinese and Albanian:

  
  这是我的名片。
  Zhè shì wǒ de míngpiàn.
  Kjo është kartëvizita ime.