languages in my town", I thought, "Why
not get acquaintance with some of them?" With the help of my
somewhat forgotten but hastily refreshed Russian knowledge, I spoke
with the representatives of our Hungarian language relatives. Some of
them promised to send me a translation after returning home. From that
congress I have the following languages translated: Karelian, Udmurt,
Estonian, Komi and Nenets. At the congress, I met a Livonian student
who is a representative of a small group of people whose language is
spoken by only 20 people. He promised me the translation but has not
sent it yet. He hasn’t even answered my second and third letter either.
In my last letter I asked him to translate the text into Lituanian as well
as Livonian. Since he lives in Riga, Lithuania, I assume he is bilingual.
I hope he will eventually respond as did my Lappish translator after one
and a half years.
> One of our Finnish friends had promised to look for a Lappish
translator. Much time passed and I had given up all hope of ever getting
that translation but now I do have it.
> The next year Venice Marathon brought me two further languages.
After my husband had run the marathon on Sunday, we took a trip to
Verona on Monday. On our way there, a group of four happy, talkative
young people entered our compartment. The three sisters and a brother
spoke an interesting sounding language, unknown to me. I asked them
if they were Swedish. Smiling, they said, "No", but that I wasn’t the
first to mistake their language for Swedish. They were speaking Swiss
German. Later on they changed to formal German, so we could
understand them. They promised to translate my short story into their
mother tongue. I received it in one month’s time. They wrote that at
home they were sitting around the dinner table the same way that we
sat in a round in the train compartment. And sentence by sentence they
translated the text together.
> The next day, our friend the Italian translator took us on a trip into
the Alps. We passed a region where, he said, a small group of people
speak Friuli, a Rheto Romance language. He promised to ask one of his
customers who lives there to make the Friulian translation.
> My eldest brother’s Dutch art partner who organizes figure and
medal exhibitions for him, translated the text into Dutch. I wrote to a
Biology professor from Belgium who I met some years ago in Eger
(my home town) and asked him to translate the text into Flemish. I sent
him the list of languages and translators as well, asking him to fill in
his data, also. Instead of the Flemish translation I got a short letter in
which he said he felt it not to be important to write a Flemish
translation since he saw I already had the text in Dutch. These two
languages are, as he wrote, similar in written form, and only in
pronunciation are there some differences.
> He did not make the translation, but some month later another
Belgian couple visited us. Listening to my request they asked for a
typing machine and immediately translated the short story into Flemish.
They also promised me a Cashmirian translation because a Cashmirian
man lives in their village, they ask him to do the work. Later on they
wrote me it was told them that Cashmirian is a spoken language only,
They use Hindi script while writing, but Hindi I already have. Instead
of the Chasmirian they organised an African language: another friend
in their village, couple from Zaire translated the short story into Luba
language.
Later, my short story continued its role as a magnet and brought me
two new friends; two language fans. As I had begun to think about
publishing a book, I had to look for and ask permission for copying the
language descriptions from the writer of the "Lord’s Prayer in 121
European Languages". Looking for his name in the Budapest telephone
book and finding four Németh Zsigmonds, I had the same good fortune
as I did in my Toronto search. The first number I dialed was his. He
was very friendly. We met in Budapest and went together to the Indian
Embassy. I wanted to ask them about the herd of the Indian language
for which I have translation. He asked about some language problems
pertaining to the preparation of his next book entitled, "Asia’s
Languages Shown Through the Lord’s Prayer in Different Languages."
He directed me to a new language at this time because he sent my story
to:
> a man who constructed a new artificial language, Vikto.
Mr. Németh brought me to a friend of his who became interested in

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