Speaking in Tongues

by Ella Frances Sanders

Ever feel like you are pedalling in the choucroute? Been caught with your beard in the mailbox again? Or maybe you just wish everyone would stop ironing your head?

Speaking in Tongues brings the weird, wonderful and surprising nuanced beauty of language to life with over fifty gorgeous watercolour and ink illustrations.

Here you will find the perfect romantic expression, such as the Spanish tu eres mi media naranja, or 'you are the love of my life, my soulmate', and the bizarre, including dancing bears and broken pots, feeding donkeys sponge cake, a head full of crickets, and clouds and radishes. All encourage new ways of thinking about the world around us, and breathe magnificent life into the everyday.

These phrases from across the world are ageless and endlessly enchanting, passed down through generations. Now they are yours.

• ISBN10: 1910931268
• ISBN13: 9781910931264
• Publish Date: 14 November 2016
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Square Peg
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 112
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

From the same author as Lost in Translation and done in the same format, this is a lovely collection of idioms from around the world, each one illustrated, with an explanation of the idiom's meaning.     Some translate pretty straight-forwardly, like the Portuguese To feed a donkey sponge cake, or my personal favourite (one I use but didn't know the origins of), the Polish not my circus, not my monkeys.  Some require a bit more explanation, like the Persian/Farsi I will eat your liver, which actually is used as a term of endearment and an expression of deep love.     My only complaint is the same one I had with Lost in Translation: the lack of a phonetic guide to pronunciation.  It's less important here, as most of these are full phrases, but for languages that don't use the Roman alphabet, either a pronunciation or at least a transliteration would really round out the collection's usefulness.