The Little Prince in Indonesian…
The Indonesian archipelago is not only a crossroads where almost all the world’s great civilisations – Indian, Chinese, Islamic and Western – meet and mingle. It is also a particularly interesting region in which to depart from the orientalist’s approach and adopt that of the anthropologists, who generally focus their attention on the Pacific islands and the confines of Melanesia. Indonesian is the official language of the 200 million or so citizens of the Republic of Indonesia. The Malay spoken in Malaysia and the Malay spoken in the Sultanate of Brunei and Singapore are merely variants of a common language that has evolved along different lines according to the dictates of colonialism. These languages, which use Latin characters, have been influenced by Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese and European languages.
Nannha Shahzada
The Little Prince in Urdu, translated by Shafiq Naz and Bilqis Naz.
Urdu is nowadays the national and official language of Pakistan (population approximately 125 million). Urdu has long been a lingua franca in the region, and is spoken in all the towns and cities. The ethnic language of Muslim refugees from Northern India after Partition in 1947, over the last 150 years Urdu has acquired the status of language of culture in the Pakistani Punjab. Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language of Northern India which shares much of its syntax and morphology with Hindi, apart from certain Persian elements. The basic Urdu vocabulary is also shared with modern Hindi.
Numerous borrowings from the Arabic and Persian, however, have given the phonological system of Urdu a number of extra phonemes, and the Persian influence means that it excludes certain phonemes introduced by the Sanskritisation of modern Hindi. Urdu derives all its learned, literary, political and religious vocabulary from Arabic and Persian. The same applies to scientific vocabulary, although English neologisms are common.
Preah Angkmchah Toch
SIPAR has published The Little Prince in Khmer, with the assistance of the Department of French Studies at Phnom Penh University.
Through SIPAR, Béatrice Montariol is working to promote reading in Cambodia, where illiteracy rates are high. « We thought it an excellent book to promote reading across the country, » she emphasised.
Since 1991, SIPAR has set up 70 libraries and three mobile libraries operating around the outskirts of Phnom Penh, and organised training for librarians. In 2000, SIPAR launched a programme of publishing books in Khmer with the aim of providing low-cost, high-quality educational books.
SIPAR: Soutien à l’Initiative Privée pour l’Aide à la Reconstruction des Pays du Sud-Est Asiatique (support for private initiative to aid in the reconstruction of South East Asian countries).
Find out more: http://www.sipar.org/
El Princip Piscinin and Dr Kluane Prinz
After publishing The Little Prince in Piedmont Occitan (El Pchi Prinsë), Valdostan Franco-Provençal (Lo Petsou Prince) and in Piedmontese (Ël Cit Prinsi), publishers Wesak are bringing out two new translations: one in Milanese, El Princip Piscinin, and the other in South Tyrolean, Dr Kluane Prinz. « Ses ann fa, m\’è capitaa on guast in del desèrt del Sahara. S\’era s\’ceppaa on quaicòss in del mè motor, e siccome gh\’avevi minga con mì né on meccanich, né passegger, me son preparaa a tentà, de per mì, ona difficil riparazion. Per mì l\’era ona question de vita ò de mòrt. Gh\’avevi acqua de bev domà per vòtt dì. » (El Princip Piscinin, Ch. 2) |
The Little Prince in space
French astronaut Philippe Perrin set off on a mission into space with six other passengers and… a copy of The Little Prince. To mark the occasion, a badge in the Little Prince’s colours was made for Philippe, who said he was keen to gain a perception of the « spiritual dimension » of his journey into orbit. His destination was none other than the International Space Station, ISS, still under construction at present.
De klääne Prinz
Marianne Hass has translated Le Petit Prince into Platt, a French dialect spoken in the region of Sarreguemines, in north eastern France. This dedicated defender of the dialect has already produced a glossary of Platt terms containing over 5,000 words.
Fifteen centuries ago, the incoming Franks brought with them a Germanic language very different from and much older than German, known as Frankish, Franconian or Platt. This was the language spoken by Clovis and Charlemagne. Today it is spoken by some 350,000 people, over half of them in the Moselle department of France but also in Germany (Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate), Luxembourg and a small area of Belgium. Three forms of Franconian are spoken in the Moselle: Moselle Franconian in the Pays de Nied, Rhenish Franconian in the coalfields that stretch as far as Alsace and Luxembourgish Franconian in the region of Thionville.
The Little Prince exhibition on TV
An excellent programme produced by Brazilian TV channel Globo features footage that bears witness to how much Brazilians are enjoying the Oca exhibition, which runs until December. Such is the subject’s appeal in Brazil that a team was sent to film François d’Agay (nephew and godson of Saint-Exupéry) and visit the Château de Saint-Maurice de Rémens, which played such a big part in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s childhood. |
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The Pop-Up book makes the New York Times Top 10
Gift ideas for this Christmas
It’s the same every Christmas; you tell yourself there is plenty of time, and suddenly the end of December is almost upon you, and no Christmas shopping done! To make sure there are no last-minute gaps to fill in your Christmas gift list, why not visit the Little Prince online store today? |
Animated series: gifts for 2010 |
The must-have pop-up book After selling out in 2009, the giant pop-up book is back in French and English, bringing all the poetry of the Little Prince to life before your very eyes. The giant pop-up book has made a name for itself as the most delightful way of reading the story of the Little Prince to younger children. Gift of the year in 2009, a performance likely to be repeated this Christmas, too! |
Art under the Christmas tree Christmas is also the time for treating loved ones to especially beautiful gifts. New in the online store are these raw pewter figurines, made in France by traditional craftsman’s methods for Editions Michel de Seguin. Appreciate the Little Prince and his flight of wild birds, as you have never seen them before. One of the newest items in the store is undoubtedly one of the finest gifts possible this Christmas: a boxed set containing the Folio edition of Le Petit Prince, Le Petit Prince read by Gérard Philipe and, best of all, nine lithographs (A4 size) based on watercolours from the Little Prince. |
Gifts with a heart On another note, there are also gifts for a Little Prince or Princess in need of cheering at Christmas: buy the cuddly fox toy at the special price, to be given to a child in hospital. The online store has also come up with a really original gift, straight out of the Little Prince’s world: baobab seeds! They are produced by INECOBA, the Institute for Study and Conservation of the Baobab, and are a Fair Trade product. |
Gifts that are always a hit! One gift that never disappoints is a watch, like this black and gold model. New in the online store, it features all the key scenes from The Little Prince: from sunsets to the meeting with the fox. A practical gift, and one with a special meaning for the grown-ups amongst us, who are often (too) pressed for time.
Other classics like the diary and the 2011 calendar make perfect gifts for rounding off 2010 on a high note. |
The Little Prince online store ! |