Do geese see God? (English)
Knit again and you’ll get a beer (Neulo taas niin saat oluen, Finnish)
It was raining bread in the garden (Aias sadas saia, Estonian)
Maybe tomorrow that lady will give a cake to the hedgehogs (Może jutro ta dama da tortu jeżom, Polish)
In Rome love will come to you suddenly (Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor, Latin)
O genius, may the Lord honour your ego! (O Genie, der Herr ehre dein Ego!, German)
These may sound like aphorisms, but they are all palindromes gathered in honour of the European Day of Languages this weekend (26 September 2015). This year it’s all about the languages of schooling, with a worthy and wordy Council of Europe document “to provide opportunities for all to acquire competences in the language(s) of schooling which are necessary for their success in the various school subjects”.
There are events all over Europe, including a Welsh-English bilingual spelling bee and a fabulous translation game organised by the Free Word Centre in London: Tickets are free but you need them in advance, so book now. Register your own event or find one hear you here. With events from Tromsø to Réunion, you should be able to find something not to far away – if all else fails, join the concentrated online effort to teach and learn languages through the medium of Esperanto.
Or find more multilingual palindromes and wordplay on the EDL website to enjoy from wherever you are.
(The image is from ecletech, thank you!)
Translator, editor, writer, reader
found in translation 
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