Further to yesterday’s entry, Translate This! gives a link to a BBC page for the European Day of Languages that presents a snapshot of 35 European languages.

Today, September 26th, is the European Day of Languages. I discovered this by accident last week. It’s a spin-off of the European Year of Languages, which I do remember. The Council of Europe has information on it. Here’s the calendar showing more than 500 events from 40 countries:

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Shame about that. There was also a competition for a slogan for 2004 – winning three entries were Pack an extra language in your luggage; A world for living, languages for sharing; and Languages: a rainbow of colours and cultures. I find these mildly depressing

CILT has a page of what it calls ‘Celebrity linguists’, but not all of them actually say they speak a foreign language – some just think it’s a good idea.

The link to Linguist Online didn’t work either, but an abbreviated version took me to an article by Dan Brennan about how foreign footballers cope with language difficulties in their new country. (The Linguist is the journal of the Institute of Linguists):

bq. … for British players moving abroad, inability or reluctance to learn the language of their adopted country has often proved a major stumbling block. On being quizzed by the Italian media, Paul Gascoigne could, notoriously, only manage a belch by way of riposte. And former Liverpool legend Ian Rush revealed a possibly flawed adaptation strategy at his new club Juventus when he bemoaned the fact that ‘living in Italy was like living in a foreign country’. It will be interesting to see whether David Beckham will take a more enlightened approach at Real Madrid.

Perhaps I can pull myself together for St. Jerome’s day on September 30th (if I remember it).

Vertretbar.de (Sascha Kremer) reports that there has been a test of services offered by German local authorities online. I didn’t even realize you could register a change of address online. That would be very welcome. However, Fürth is described as ‘could do better’ (verbesserungswürdig), while Nurember gets top marks (vorbildlich).

Virtuelle Rathäuser online werden verglichen. Weitere Links bei Vertretbar.de.

The Juristisches Internetprojekt Saarbrücken (the best portal to start looking for German law, and it contains international links too) always has a link of the week. This week the link is porticolegal, described in German here (with past links of the week below).

Porticolegal offers news, statutes, case reports, literature, a search for lawyers, links to professional associations and universities, online journals and discussions forums, and much more.

The Deutscher EDV-Gerichtstag e.V. (German Association for Computing in the Judiciary) 12th conference is being held from 24th-26th September in Saarbrücken. The association’s website has German, English, French and Russian versions (very good English, translated by Jennifer Heuer).

The German weblog LAWgical is reporting in German. Several short reports on presentations are available there.

The German Edgar Pusch has been excavating in the Nile Delta for 25 years, on the site of the capital city of Rameses II (1290 to 1224 B.C.).

Among other things he has found a coloured gold floor, remains of a pharaonic palace and the oldest known raw glass production site.

His team has now found what they describe as a fragment from Rameses’ legendary cuneiform archives.

Photograph and more details in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten.

The German spelling is Ramses, but the Oxford Dictionary for Writers & Editors, which I usually follow, has Rameses.

The document is the first cuneiform text to be found in Egypt since 1888/1889. It is from archives of diplomatic documents and refers to the peace treaty between Rameses II and Hattusili III, king of the Hittites. This is the oldest known peace treaty.

It is not known if a road map was recovered.