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between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion

Lingua Translation Project

In Fall 2003, a new Sanborn sculpture was dedicated at the new Washington D.C. Convention Center. The sculpture is called "Lingua" and consists of two 16-foot tall cylinders. Each cylinder is covered with four rings of text, meaning there are passages written in 8 different languages: French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Iroquois, Russian, and Ethiopian.

This Project is an attempt to transcribe and translate all 8 sections. If you are interested in helping with this project, please bookmark this page so you can see the latest status.

The Transcripts and Translations

Note: Most of the following are first draft attempts. If you would like to create your own transcript or translation, feel free! The more independent attempts, the better. Simply edit this page to add a link to your version.

French

Transcribed and Translated

Spanish

Transcribed and Translated

Chinese

Transcribed but not yet entirely translated

  • Transcript

  • Note: in order to read the above file, you will need to download the font file "TSC JSONG S TT" from http://www.twinbridge.com/Products/CJKTTFont/cttfont.html and install it on your computer. Instructions are on the website.
  • There is no specific translation yet, but the text is recognized as being from: http://www.chinapage.com/calligraphy/wangxizhi/lantingbg.html Lan Ting Xu ("Orchid Pavilion") by Wang Xi Zhi.

    Iroquois

  • Transcribed 12/22/2003 by David Wilson (Note: this file is RTF, and may only read correctly if read in "WordPad")

  • The Iroquois translation

    Ethiopian

    Transcribed, but not yet entirely translated

  • JPG transcription, by David Wilson (for a larger version of the above image, suitable for printing, please check here)

  • Phonetic transcript by David Wilson

  • Alternate Phonetic transcript by Stevo, 2005

    No definite translation has been provided for certain, but, so far, the other 7 translations all relate to "meetings" of some sort, and, seeing as this is a sculpture in a Convention Center, along with the fact that the word "Solomon" appears 3 times, and the Amharic "question mark" symbols appear, I (David Wilson) believe that this text can be related to 1 Kings 10, 1-13 http://www.ethiopianhistory.com/bible/ .

    Russian

    Transcribed by Giezr, translation probably from Tolstoy
  • http://www.lib.ru/LITRA/TOLSTOJ/warandpeace3.txt
  • http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Tolstoy/warandpeac/warandpeac189.html

    Greek

  • Transcribed and Translated

  • Additional transcript

    French

  • Transcribed and Translated

    Spanish

  • David Wilson's translation

  • Patrick Thompson's translation

    Latin

  • Transcribed and Translated

  • Updated transcript

  • Possible source, paragraph 56: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/tacitus/tac.ann12.shtml

    Image Library

    These images are not yet sorted, but all of the images currently available of the Lingua sculpture are available in the following three directories:

  • http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/sanborn/dc/images1.html
  • http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/sanborn/dc2/images1.html
  • http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/sanborn/text/images1.html

    Many of the above images can also be seen in a neat "magnifier" format (zoom quickly from thumbnails to medium-size to large images) at:

  • http://kryptos.yak.net/19

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    (last modified 2005-11-04)       [Login]
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