Tourism question, or suggestion

Apart from the general information about the touristic site, the people responsible should also translate the old slavonic writing found on the royal tombs and other monuments there and make the translation available to be read by tourists! Both Romanian and foreign tourists!

What is this topic referring to?
And what languages should the text be translated to?

Gen. Dénes

I'm talking about the slavonic (is this term wrong?) texts that can be found on royal (or voievodale if you prefer) tombs and other old monuments in Romania.

Romanian, English and French at least.

Yes and no...

"Slavonic" refers to a language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic
If that is the case, you need translation.

However, in many cases such inscriptions are in old Romanian (language) witten with Cyrillic letters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet
This is loosely similar to the "Moldovan" language of the old Soviet USSR (Romanian language, Cyrillic alphabet). That was also the way old Romanian was until the mid 1800s.
If that is the case, it should be quite readable (although it can be difficult sometimes) if you have any Russian, as the alphabet may be similar in places (and you can fill the gaps). As an alternative, you can print the Cyrillic alphabet from here http://www.omniglot.com/writing/romanian.htm and use it as a guide.

I had to translate a few such texts in the past and after a while, once you get used to the "flow" of the text, it is quite easy.

HTH
Radu

This post has been edited by Radub on May 20, 2009 03:34 pm

Thank you for that omniglot link, Radub.

I confronted them with some picture I took, and yes, it's old church slavonic. And in other cases the inscriptions are difficult to read.

Tourists are neither archaeologists nor linguists and the lack of translations are a major shortcoming. The people taking care of those sites should place some translations. WTH are the local historians doing?

What do you mean by "local historians"? I graduated History, but the Slavonic/Ancient Greek/Latin was an optional course, quite dreaded I might add (and the only students who actually chose the Slavonic were from Bessarabia; the Romanians "se fereau ca dracu' de tămâie" / "ran like hell from it") I was among the fortunate ones; being at History-English language section, didn't have to learn any "ancient language"
Getting back, who do you think would do that tedious job for free? The Tourism Minister, perhaps? She's busy with the president of Norway

Thanks for clarifying the topic of this thread.

As for the languages the translations should be posted in, currently there is a scandal going on in Cluj, where the mayor intends to post historical description and background on various local monuments exactly and only in these 3 languages (Romanian, English and French), ommitting German and Hungarian, languages which are relevant to the local history.

This post has been edited by Dénes on May 21, 2009 12:53 pm

Funar syndrome all over again, isn't it? Perhaps he thinks that the German and Hungarian speakers already know what's it about - or he thinks they've got to know one of those international circulation languages (En, Fr, Ro ); figure out how much space would be needed for a five-languages translation!

Nevertheless others did study that language and I'm sure we have the needed linguists. If not, the local historians should at least know where to find the translations (I doubt the major inscriptions haven't been already translated).

Of course: they just lack the "stimulus" to do that... Do you have any idea what are the wages in the system for teachers/researchers?

I think this has more to do with lack of interest and poor management. Most likely from the part of the people managing those sites. I did not imply it's the fault of the local historians, but they could have more initiative in taking care of and promoting the locality's historical heritage.

And I'm not saying the texts are completely absent. There are explanatory texts, but they're general. Tourists actually wonder "what does it say there".

BTW, Udrea is not in Norway, she's painting horses:

http://www.ziare.com/Romania_ademeneste_tu...bre-759264.html

Motorcyclists riding zebras seems to be one of the tourism priorities now.

edit - an "expert" in "national security" is in charge of the... tourism ministry.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on May 21, 2009 06:59 pm

AFAIK, poor management is an excuse for so many things in our country... These monuments and/or museums are taking care of (or not ) by the local authorities; if those lack interest or cannot see the money-making potential of such enterprises, they simply don't do anything!
We simply don't know how to sell our history