It's All Heavenly Script To Me

[hmmm_tea]

This is interesting:



The arrows from each language balloon points to the languages they use to indicate gobbledygook (i.e. in the same way we say that something is "all greek to me").

I love the way it almost forms a hierarchy from Heavenly Script being the most gibberish, going through Chinese and then down into the other languages.

(via strangemaps)

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Where's German? This is going to bug me until I can ask na_lon.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Let us know when you find out where it belongs on the chart

The Polish Economy in Bohemian Villages

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Actually going back to the original post on strangemaps (http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/362-greek-to-me-mapping-mutual-incomprehension/#more-1190):

One reported German expression for something incomprehensible: “Mesopotamisch”. Another one: “Kauderwelsch” (possibly referring to the Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in Switzerland)

and

“Das ist mir Böhmischer Dörfer” (’That’s Bohemian villages to me”) - this German reference to the incomprehension (or at least impronouncability) of Bohemian (i.e. Czech) village names is mirrored in the Slovak expression “Je pre mňa španielska dedina” (”(That) is for me a Spanish village”), and in the Slovenian one “To mi je španska vas” (”This is a Spanish village to me”) . Other related expressions, not just dealing with incomprehension so much as just plain chaos, are “Czeski film” (”Czech movie”) in Polish, for a kafkaesque situation, for example in dealing with bureaucracy. German has “polnische Wirtschaft” (”Polish economy”) for a chaotic situation and “Fachchinesisch” for technical jargon.

[passage.livejournal.com]

Where's our arrow to Dutch?

I guess China is big and old, and has a very different language from Europe. After all, it's hard to believe that Chinese is worse than Welsh.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Good point *grabs marker pen and adds to screen by hand*

That's another thing I had no idea where it came from until now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Dutch_(writing_style))

Chinese is probably more gobbledygook because of the different alphabet.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that's the origin of “double dutch” - for one thing another website finds uses going back to the start of the 19th century.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

OK, it's maybe not where it actually came from, but it's still the first idea of where it came from I heard.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

That is interesting - thanks.