Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 1 of 27 27 October 2010 at 10:17pm | IP Logged |
In yet another solid example of the importance of learning at least something of the local language when doing something reasonably important (or, as we are taking about a wedding ceremony, reasonably foolish depending on your life perspective), a link to a story about someone from the Maldives running madly amok in a local language (Dhivehi) with impugnity when conducting a wedding ceremony.
Daily mail article
Some of the highlights, all of which went over the heads of the couple involved who came to the Maldives armed perhaps with suntan lotion but no Dhivehi phrasebook:
‘You are swine. The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine,’ he says to his guests.
‘Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel – and we have reason to believe – an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion.’
“Germs of anger and hatred will breed and drip from the tips of your penises,”
Edited by Spanky on 27 October 2010 at 10:31pm
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 2 of 27 28 October 2010 at 3:47am | IP Logged |
Well, I'm tempted to say they had it coming. It's like getting a tattoo in a language you can't read. But then I saw in the article that they had come to "renew their vowels". You can hardly do that in a language you already speak.
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lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin
| Message 3 of 27 28 October 2010 at 4:51am | IP Logged |
The only redeeming part of that video was seeing that cool script.
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Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5678 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish
| Message 4 of 27 28 October 2010 at 5:33am | IP Logged |
I don't blame the couple. The ceremony was a very minor portion of their stay; learning
the language wouldn't have made sense. Further, they were having their vows renewed
instead of getting an original marriage. Vow renewals are entirely sentimental and most
people don't put much thought into it.
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 5 of 27 28 October 2010 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
I would take this story with a pinch of salt. It may have happened that way, but the Daily Mail is widely regarded as Britain's most xenophobic daily newspaper, and guileless British people going abroad and being victimised by evil foreigners is one of its constant themes. Its general tone leads to critics referring to it as the Daily Wail, the Daily Hate and the Daily Heil.
It would be unfair to say it hates all foreigners. In the 1930s, it quite liked Adolf Hitler.
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 6 of 27 28 October 2010 at 1:15pm | IP Logged |
Ah, the Daily Mail. Dan and Dan put it best in The Daily Mail Song...
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garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 7 of 27 28 October 2010 at 1:36pm | IP Logged |
William Camden wrote:
Its general tone leads to critics referring to it as the Daily Wail, the Daily Hate and the Daily Heil.
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You forgot Daily Fail ;)
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zamie Groupie Australia Joined 5254 days ago 83 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Modern Hebrew
| Message 8 of 27 28 October 2010 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
Such a small language, I don't blame the couple for their ignorance.
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