Correspondance

In 1956 my Grandfather wrote letters to friends, newspapers, universities, embassies, the Bible Society and other publishing companies trying to find the correct translation into the chosen languages, and to find type for printing his buttons.

He sent out double-postcards, with a self-addressed return half, asking for the translation. He frequently tried more than one source, and if he found discrepancies he would ask more people. He also sent some glossy white paper and asked people to write the phrase in their native script. I don't know how many letters he sent, but at least 100 were returned.

My favorite letters were the ones from the Rev. Elmer Griesse, a missionary in India. These are shown on this page. Also here is a list of .jpg files of the letters arranged by language. The next page shows selected phrases that demonstrate the difficulties in translation.

Lutheran Hour
Bible Society

Afghan
Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Albanian
Arabic
Armenian
Bulgarian
Bulgarian
Burmese
Chinese
Chinese
Chinese
Chinese
Czech and Slovak
Danish
Danish
Danish
Dutch
Dutch
Dutch
Dutch
Dutch
Egyptian
Egyptian
Egyptian
Estonian
Estonian
Finnish
Flemish
German
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian (Griesse)
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indian
Indonesian
Indonesian
Indonesian
Italian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Korean
Latvian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Lithuanian
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Persian
Persian
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Rumanian
Russian
Scandinavian
Scandinavian
Scandinavian
Southern European
Spanish
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Yiddish

home beginnings correspondance troubles with translations making the buttons the collection