Of hovercraft, eels and linguistics

Via e-mail this week, I was reminded of the Monty Python Hungarian phrase-book sketch.

It seems there’s a Web site that has translated the key phrase into almost every language known to humankind (and some that may not be – known, that is).  Examples:

Amharic:  የኔ ማንዣበቢያ መኪና በእባቦች ተሞልቷል
(yäne manžabäbia mäkina bä’əbaboch tämoltwal) – [“snakes”]
(there is no word for eels in Amharic)

Gujarati:  મારું હોવેરક્રાફ્ટ ઈલ માછલીઓ થી ભરાઈ ગયું છે
(maru hovercraft eel machhalio thi bharay gayu chh)

Spanish:  Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas
(for those Spring Break trips to Mexico)

Yiddish:  מײַן פּראָם (שוועבשיף) איז פֿול מיט ווענגערס
(Mayn prom (shveb-shif) iz ful mit vengers)
(for that special trip to Jerusalem)

There are many more at the link.

I wonder how many hours of effort went into compiling that (very exhaustive) list of translations?  I knew the Internet could be a time sink, but that has to be one of the more spectacular examples . . .

Peter