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From: jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Call for Proper Noun Idioms
Message-ID: <2846@randvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Dec-85 11:37:18 EST
Article-I.D.: randvax.2846
Posted: Fri Dec 20 11:37:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Dec-85 00:16:37 EST
References: <161@aero.ARPA>
Reply-To: jim@rand-unix.UUCP (Jim Gillogly)
Organization: Banzai Institute
Lines: 21
Keywords: Proper Nouns, Idioms

In article <161@aero.ARPA> solomon@aero.UUCP (Steve Solomon) writes:
>I am interested in idiomatic expressions in English and other languages
>that uses proper nouns, from linguistic and cultural perspectives. The
>classic English examples,
>
>(1) It's Greek to me.
>(3) Es kommt mir Spanisch vor.         (1) It's Spanish to me.
>Hebrew for (1) is 'Chinese' and I suspect many languages also use the

The Esperanto phrase translates to "It's Volap"uk to me." (^Gi estas min
Volap"uka) (I think -- is that right, Neal?  Prentiss?).  I believe this
phrase was blessed by Zamenhof, the designer of the language.  Volap"uk
was an international language designed some years earlier than Esperanto,
and was one of the main reasons that Esperanto never quite took off: many
of the True Believers had been once burned.  It was notoriously
unintelligible: at the Volap"uk conferences nobody was able to speak it to
each other!
--
        Jim Gillogly
        {decvax, vortex}!randvax!jim
        jim@rand-unix.arpa