August 1, 2014 --Yes it's true! Go
into Vatican City and it is
possible to find an ATM touchscreen which tells
you "Inserito scidulam quaeso ut
faciundam cognoscas rationem" (Please insert your card and enter
the PIN), a reminder of
the importance of language and its translation in just
about every human endeavour one can think of! The three 'August'
novelties (RM on Facebook, Pope Francis in Korea and
the Bicentenary which kicks off on August 16) are all
language-translation demanding events, so it seemed
useful to link them together here.
You will notice
another novelty in this edition: 4 reminders, instead
of the usual one, in coloured text above.
- The Bicentenary
hashtag
- RM on Facebook
- This month's
mission intention
- EAO Prayer
intentions. In
the last case, don't panic - 31 days can cover every
little (and big) part of our Region, and probably by
now most provinces have received their 'prayer card'
pic. The first four days of the month are for the southeasternmost
part
of the Region.
RM
on Facebook The Rector Major,
Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, has decided to become a 'public
person' on Facebook. He began in Spanish, then given his
rapidly improving Italian, began including a 'Good morning'
piece in that language. Now he has decided that he needs to
reach people like ourselves who share a different lingua
franca, English. So with a little help from his friends, so
to speak, in FB language, there is now a 'good morning' in
English. The link you are given (click on the FB pic above)
will take you to the en-gb version of his es-es page. In
other words, you could replace en-gb at the beginning of the
link and see his original. To find the English 'good
morning' you just need to scroll down till you come to it.
His latest stats
tell him he is just short of 10,000 people who pop in and
take a look (and the other stats you can see for yourself on
his page). Maybe if his latest 'good morning' gets a few
responses from our area, he can pass that 10,000 mark!
Pope's visit to Korea
If you click on the icon being employed for the upcoming
papal visit to Korea, you can follow the various events in
due course in an English translation, at least for some
things. There is a very uplifting video available on the
page, showing young Koreans preparing liturgically. The
visit will include the 6th Asian Youth Day, the
Beatification of 124 Korean Martyrs, and a Mass for Peace
and Reconciliation.
Bicentenary of Don Bosco's
Birth
We have had ample preparation! If Italian is not a language
you manage all that well, then you will need to pick up
whatever has been sent out to Provinces in English. There
are some small items of help on sdb.org pages: a timetable
of events. logos and whatnot, no great detail as yet on what
will take place at Colle Don Bosco on August 16. If you
haven't already visited it, the Monferrato
region has a website (in Italian but they make a
Google translate option visible). It is a touristy type site
but if you click on the Bicentenary logo further down on
their main page it
takes
you to some interesting info.
It looks like the main Bicentenary site is neither Valdocco
nor Colle but the Salesians Piedmont
site. It is all in Italian however. You can always go
for the 'Google' option and get some of it in a language of
your choice.
Ah yes, languages. Stop
w(h)ining!
I guess it's easy to complain when you find something in a
language you can't understand and when everything seems so
monolingual (oddly enough, Ethnologue lists only one country
in the world as monolingual - North Korea). Since we began
with ATMs let's end with something different - another
foreign language called wine labels. Can you tell me what on
earth I'd be drinking if I only had the following to go by?
Pale gold in colour, this
wine smells of white flowers and lemon curd, with a hint
of sweet oak. It offers an explosion of crushed wet rocks
in the mouth. The tender and beautifully filigreed
flavours of tart unripe apples and lemon curd vie for
attention. Beautifully bright acidity zips the wine along
the palate, leaving a waxy parchment quality in the
lingering finish.
