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The chapters
The languages of the book
One dead, one invented, one creole, one without relatives, one without writing — and the great languages of contact. Every entry gives the same things: what the language forces you to say, a word that cannot be translated, and a text read in its own language.
The thresholds
The text that opens each chapter
Je est un autre.
French · Rimbaud, lettre à Paul Demeny, 15 mai 1871
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris…
I sing of arms and of the man who first, from the shores of Troy…
Latin · Virgile, Énéide, I, 1 (v. 29-19 av. J.-C.)
Sé grenn diri ki ka fè sak diri.
It is the grains of rice that make the sack of rice.
Creole · Proverbe créole antillais, tradition orale
En la mondon venis nova sento…
Into the world there came a new feeling…
Esperanto · Zamenhof, « La Espero » (1890)
나랏말ᄊᆞ미 듕귁에 달아 문ᄍᆞ와로 서르 ᄉᆞᄆᆞᆺ디 아니ᄒᆞᆯᄊᆡ…
Naratmalssami dyunggwige dara munjjawaro seoreu sammatdi anihalssae…
The language of our country differs from that of China, and cannot be reached by its characters…
Korean · Hunminjeongeum, préface du roi Sejong (1443) — le texte qui présente le hangeul
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
English · Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, 1 (1603)
Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the orders of angels?
German · Rilke, Élégies de Duino, I (1912)
En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme…
In a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not care to remember…
Spanish · Cervantès, Don Quichotte, I, 1 (1605)
Я вас любил: любовь ещё, быть может, в душе моей угасла не совсем…
Ia vas lioubil : lioubov' iechtcho, byt' mojet, v douché moïeï ougasla nié sovsem…
I loved you once: that love, perhaps, is not entirely extinguished in my soul…
Russian · Pouchkine, « Я вас любил… » (1829)
قِفا نَبكِ مِن ذِكرى حَبيبٍ وَمَنزِلِ
Qifā nabki min dhikrā ḥabībin wa-manzili
Halt, you two, and let us weep at the memory of a beloved and an encampment.
Arabic · Imru' al-Qays, Muʿallaqa (VIᵉ siècle)
床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng, yí shì dì shàng shuāng.
Before my bed, the bright moonlight: I take it for frost upon the ground.
Chinese (Mandarin) · Li Bai, « Pensée dans la nuit calme » (VIIIᵉ siècle)
Une langue qui n'a pas de ligne.
Where French unrolls words one after another, LSF layers them: the hand, the gaze, the face and the space say several things at once.
French Sign Language · Le livre y consacre un chapitre entier, sans texte à citer