52 Ancestors Week 20 - Another Language

Question

AJC - The Week 20 theme is "Another Language." You could write about an ancestor who spoke a different language than you do. You could highlight the first time that you had to work with a record in another language. Maybe there's an epitaph on an ancestor's tombstone that's written in a different language. Is there an ancestor who spoke more than one language?

Don't forget to tell us which language your ancestors or relatives spoke.

Has the family continued speaking that language or has it been dropped?

Comments

My great grandfather on my dads side was German educated in Berlin at the University. He spoke Latin, German, English, French, and Italian. A classical education. If you look at the way his family in germany dresses you can tell they had enough money to go on with. 1880 Germany had no future for Gustav Lange that he could see. He couldnt own land or marry without permission. The best he could hope for was a small legacy and a job from his father but the bulk was meant for his older brother. Also he had been militarily trained and was expected to fight for a country that could not provide a commoner with the type of life he wanted. So he came to the US in 1881. He immediately hooked up with others from his country, and he worked at a famous brewery hauling beer until someone brought his language skills to the notice of the brewery owner. Soon he was translating and writing and advocating for less educated men. His boss loaned him the money to buy his first property in 1882 . The contract was a handshake. My great grandfather was a man of many parts. He had many children owned a large farm called Lone Oak and his children all received good educations and inheritances. I was born on on the same land as my father and my grandfather. I visit regularly. my fathers oldest sister inherited when my grandparents died because my father died at 26. But My great grandfather was a Surveyor for the county later the state. He drove a school bus wagon when a school was built because many children were his own. All of the children grew up and married the children of other old settlers, some were original land grant owners. My Great grand father managed the restaurant that belonged to his oldest daughter because her husband died and left her the business and she was unable to manage home children and business in those days. My Great grandfather bought a model T car as soon as they got to Portland Oregon. There are many pictures of him in his suit or his farm clothes or even just a bright white shirt, standing with his foot on the step and fat cigar in his hand. He drove a school bus looked like a double sized model A haha ha, untill he wanted to stop then he trained a replacement...but he loved to drive, ride, farm, ( his place was a working farm) manage, bank, read, speak to strangers I gues he was a man of all parts because whatever he did he did well. The children spoke german the grandchildren understood it. In my generation all of my line speaks at least one other language, myself I am a Master of the Spanish language and a translator of english /spanish and in the past a teacher of english as a second language. I understand quite a lot of spoken French Italian and Portugese but only a small amount of German, but have an atrocious accent somewhere between english, spanish and the languaguage i try to pronounce. Terrible lol. My ggrandfather Gustave Lange was so well known, liked and respected they shut down the whole town the day of his funeral

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Being South African I grew up knowing two... We now have 11 official languages!

Answer 1

Ciao, Robynne. Penso che la risposta sia abbastanza ovvia. =)

Okay, I obviously used Google Translate for that. Well, most of it.  I had ancestors who spoke Italian and some who spoke French. The first time I came across Italian documents was when my cousin Raymalene put up information on Ancestry about my great-grandparents births in Gesualdo. She found their birth banns or announcements and I remember translating it. It prepared me for checking out the documents for San Pietro a Maida years later.

The French documents I've seen were older than the ones from Italy. I had more trouble reading that than the Italian documents. It's mainly because I learned mostly Italian from my dad and only a little bit of French. French was offered in school. I just took Spanish. Really wish Italian was offered. That's another story.

Back on topic. The first Italian documents I found were from Raymalene and another lady on Ancestry who worked on stuff from Gesualdo.

I haven't come across any epitaphs in different language but a cousin in Italy did take pictures of graves for me.

Several ancestors spoke more than one language. I've checked the censuses and the Italian immigrants spoke Italian and English. The Canadian ones spoke French and English. That lasted quite a bit as my grandma Ollie still spoke Italian until she passed away. My mom knows quite a bit of French, too.

As for me? I know some basic Italian and French. Not enough to get by of course. Good languages, though. My dad still speaks some sometimes.

Ciao!

Answer 2

In terms of language, I moved from an English speaking country to one that has 2 official languages - English and French.That country is of course Canada. Fortunately I was not required to know both languages in order to become a permanent resident - thank goodness.  While I still cannot speak or write French, I have actually learned to read it quite well.

When I was doing my husbands family tree, 15 years ago, most of the documents were and are in french so I learned to read French that way!!

My husbands parents were both native french speakers. But the family moved around a lot when my husband was a child and French speaking schools were not always available. So my husband and his brothers were required to attend English speaking schools.

Consequently my husband soon stopped speaking French and now speaks only English. While he can still understand and read French, he no longer speaks French.

Comments

Technically since New Zealand also has 2 official languages, I moved from one dual speaking country to another. But I dont speak Maori or French!!

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My car's official name is "McKoa" - the MC standing for Mini Cooper and Koa, which won the "name the baby Kiwi contest" held at the time by the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Koa means happy and jubilant in Maori, and is a great description of how I feel about the one & only car I ever purchased new!

Answer 3

My mother emigrated from Serbia to Germany and married a German. Her brother-in-law emigrated because of work from Germany to Bermuda and married there. Don't ask me how my mother and my aunt are corresponding with each other, as my mother never learned English, but they do. But the best "language story" ever in my family happened when we visited my uncle on Bermuda. My uncle collaborated with another entrepreneur and when we met him for the first time my uncle introduced us. This guy told my mother: "You speak of course English." I don't even know anymore who translated it for mum. Well, my mum answered without thinking one bit: "Govorite li Srpski?" (Serbian) He visibly never heard that language before. "Erm, no." "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" (German). Again he shook his head and said. "No." "Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?" (Esperanto) His face turned into a huge question mark. "N...noooo." "I speak not English!" He never paid attention to us again.

Comments

LOL  oh that is funny!!

I'm guessing this man has never heard of Esperanto!!

Answer 4

My grandfather, Battiscombe Gunn

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gunn-1707

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battiscombe_Gunn

was a philologist (study of languages) and Egyptologist.  He was fluent in many modern and ancient languages (including French, German, Old Englash, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Coptic,  Hebrew, Hittite,  Aramaic, and Sanskrit,  as well as Ancient Egyptian).

My father once asked him how many languages he knew.  They needed to come up with a definition of "know", and came up with "read, write, and speak-where-spoken" (i.e., he could not be expected to speak  Ancient Egyptian, since it only exists as a written language).

The answer was that he knew 21 languages.

That did NOT include Spanish- he read Cervantes in the original, and he could write a business letter in Spanish, but he could not speak it fluently.

It also did not include the languages he learned from the missionary bibles.  As he got older, he was often laid up with lumbago.  He would pick up a missionary bible in a language he did not know, and teach himself the language.  But that was only reading, so it did not count.

Comments

WOW Janet, he surely had the gift of the gab!!

Answer 5

Mine will be Graham Leonard and his profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Leonard-558. Graham Leonard vitae reads like an International travelogue  of positions  with the United Nations, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and universities ranging from teaching post in China, Europe, and the Midwest, where he has spent many years. Education is his passion. He has a degrees from the University of Tennessee, John Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in linguistics and psychology. He headed  a continuing education program for adults and teachers (CEEPAT) in Arabic language for masters in liberal arts studies in the Occupied Territories. He said that the Western education provides learning in history, language, and literature which enables students to think for themselves. But in the Mideast he found that these subjects were not taught in Arabic, but only in one of the romance languages. Only the elite Arabs were afforded a liberal arts education. He said "you can't get a humanities liberal arts education in any language in the world except English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. He is fluent in Arabic, and French. His Chinese  is "tourist level" but was good enough to enable him to write the first book published in China by a foreigner since 1949. The recent book was on methods of modernizing education in China.

Answer 6

I have Swiss and German ancestors on my mother's side, some of which, though they originally immigrated in the early to mid 1700's, still spoke some German in the home, as well as English, up through my grandfather's generation. He was born in 1888. They were farmers in the midwest, and many of the field hands were more recent immigrants, and didn't speak English well. The only German my mother was raised with was "Sehr heiss!" which meant very hot.

However, I'm going to do the most recent immigrants, on my father's side of the family, Henry Beel (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kristensen-501), who came over from Denmark in 1870, supposedly as a draft dodger, according to family legend. He was born Ferdinand Kristensen and fled the country and changed his name. And his wife, also from Denmark, Trina Olsen (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Olsen-4901).

Ferdinand Kristensen, AKA Henry Beel on the left, with his brother William Kristensen

Although Henry and Trina met and married in this country, my great-grandmother, Hulda Beel (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Beel-122) was born in Denmark, as her mother went back for a visit. I found some birth records in Danish, from Denmark, (handwritten church records) which I couldn't decipher. I passed them on to my cousin, who is a linguist, and he was able to translate them. I'm going to see if I can get him to add to this story. Below is a clipping from the Danish church record.

Comments

"Sehr heiss". Auto-correct probably changed it to heist.

Actually I think Henry and Katrina had met in Denmark and might have been married there. I'll have to check on that. Wilhelm, Henry/Ferdinand's brother was confirmed draft dodger as it was stated on his papers coming to the US. Just found that out tonight from Beel cousins I'm finding from my recent DNA test.

Who knew that studying old German cursive for fun in high school would one day have a use in deciphering old family records. The Danish had adopted a similar cursive that is quite distinct from that used in England and the US.  Glad I could lend a hand. Once the letters were figured out then I relied on Google Translate to translate the words that were too different from German for me to figure out.

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I am not finding any marriage record for Henry Beel in Illinois, nor for Ferdinand Kristensen in Denmark. You had put their marriage down for Warren, Ill. --was that from Virginia Blalock, perhaps?

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I had my details mixed up. They had met in Denmark. Henry Beel (Ferdinand Kristensen) came first to America. Once he had settled, he sent for his wife-to-be. I don't know if they were engaged formerly or not. They both are in the records as having immigrated in 1871. They were formally married in 1873. The record below has everyone's name spelled differently but the dates match up perfectly and there's too much the same as we know for it to be a different couple. 

"Illinois, County Marriages, 1810-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KFL7-Z8Y : 4 November 2017), Henry Beal and Terene Oleson, 04 Aug 1873; citing Warren, Illinois, United States, county offices, Illinois; FHL microfilm 1,377,921.

Answer 7

My father Elzo Moffett (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Moffett-341) grew up  in South Texas and worked in the oil field with many Latinos and there, he learned to speak TexMex.  He thought he spoke Spanish.  After one overseas contract he and my mother stopped in Spain to see the country.  During one bus tour they asked a fellow traveller what would be a typical Spanish dish they could order at the hotel that night.  Paella was recommended.  Just remember it comes in 2 flavors, chicken and seafood.  They decided they wanted chicken.  Elzo placed the order using his Spanish.  The waiters could speak English because they had to use English to speak to my mother.  The waiter went to the kitchen to  place the order.  Then Elizabeth asked "did you tell him we wanted chicken paella?  Elzo called the waiter back and explained at length that they wanted chicken paella.  The waiter went back to the kitchen and a few minutes later several of the cooks & helpers came out and stared across at my  parents.  Pretty soon the paella was served and it was seafood complete with shells.  They were hungry so they ate it until the shrimp staring at them curbed their appetite.  And so the waiter took away the paella dishes.  And brought out the chicken dinner Elzo had ordered.  Not wanting to admit a mistake, they ate as much of the chicken dinner as they could.

My great great grandmother Rachel (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hemminger-99) came from Germany to Texas in 1833 and would have spoken German.  Most of my ancestors arrived in the Eastern Colonies from the British Isles.  English speakers for centuries.

A first cousin married a man whose first language was Hebrew which he spoke at home, then Arabic which he spoke outside of home.  Then then migrated from Beirut to Israel.  Later for his studies he learned French and German.  Somehow he fit in English before he immigrated to the USA.  In the USA he decided he needed to learn Spanish for his work as a psychologist.  So there Is at least one multilingual person in the extended family.

Answer 8

I just came across this questions and it hits close to home!  Almost all my ancestors spoke a different language than me.  It has been one of the interesting, yet irking, parts of my research and sense of identity.  How come none of my ancestors passed down their languages?  I speak English, the dominant language of western Canada, but my ancestors up until my parent's generation spoke French, Ukrainian, and several other languages.

My grandma speaks fluent French (and English) and even taught in the French immersion schools until she was almost 80 years old! And yet, neither my mom or uncle speak fluent french.  I recently started taking courses to learn French and eventually try to converse in French with my Grandma. She told me stories about how she was eager to learn and speak English in her youth because the convents (where they went to school) disallowed them to speak English on premises. Later, she married an English speaking man of French/German descent (most of his ancestors also spoke French).

My other grandma grew up in a Ukrainian speaking community, yet neither her or any of her children speak Ukrainian (although my dad can recognize some words - mostly reprimands, haha).

I have a few random ancestors that may have spoken English earlier than my grandparents generation, and some inter-cultural ancestors who likely had bilingual families. I also suspect many of them changed languages over time due to world and national events like colonization,  immigration, and social pressures. My goal is to ensure my future descendants are bilingual, and carry forward my husbands first language, which I am also trying to learn in order to facilitate that goal.  In the meantime, I continue to try and be a good Canadian, and pick up French - maybe to make my ancestors proud (haha).

Comments

Being from Calgary I'd say this is a common situation in Canadian families! Although my husband spoke both Arabic and French as a child (French was his Native language) he speaks only English at home, while his late brother and mother spoke French at home (we lived in the European extended family home). I spoke Spanish and my Native language as a child, have lost most of both with time. When they were growing up I don't think any of my boy's friends spoke only one language.

Answer 9

My second husband's family could fill this one - he spoke only French until he attended first grade in Fall River, Massachusetts (his parents [grands?] were from Montréal). And my daughter-in-law's parents are Italian - I'll have to ask her how many languages she speaks (I know Italian, and I think Spanish and Portuguese too?).

But I'll pick my own French-Canadian connection for this week's challenge, and the joy I had in brushing off my high school French to read the records associated with Louis Marie Chauvin's ancestors.

As a bonus, I'll throw in William Awbrey - a wonderful example of the synergy found in WikiTree. G2G got me help in translating the Latin inscription on his tombstone (thanks Helmut!), and a wonderful cousin (hi Stuart!) found and had translated from the Welsh his son's will.

These ancestors are many generations back, and in the homes of my parents and grandparents, only English was spoken, although my mother knew Latin and French. When I met my second husband's parents, and his mother's sister-in-law, in the 1980s, they still primarily spoke French among themselves, although they would switch to English for the grandchildren, who didn't speak French. In our home (Bear's and mine), French was spoken sporadically, and he proved the adage that one exclaims in their native tongue when injured! (Although my ex-fiancé's Polish-born mother couldn't tell you what language she was speaking when she got upset: the English I recognized, and a word or two of the German, but I never understood any Polish or Russian, her other two languages. She taught me what German I have, which was "low German". My 3rd husband's mother was from Berlin and spoke "high German", but English was spoken in their home in America.)

So French, Welsh, and Latin from the ancestors noted above, and seven languages from my extended modern family (including almost family). Wondering if I could rack up more from my ancestors, I find I'm more homogeneous than I thought... I think I can throw in just three more - Dutch and Irish and Scots Gaelic, but not from any certain knowledge for other than the Dutch (undoubtedly spoken by my New Netherland immigrant ancestor Jan Joosten Van Meteren).

Comments

Definitely an interesting mix of languages, Liz!!

A Modern day Rosetta Stone by the sounds of it.

Answer 10

Late posting this week because my head hurts from too much information. I have two Dutch tree branches. There is a steep learning curve for me because prior to finding them, most ancestors were English or Scottish. Many had been in the US or Canada for a long time, so I hadn't come across "another language" in my searches. I never guessed that my 4th great grandmother Elizabeth Williams ( Williams-56225 ) was Dutch, but her last name got Anglicized along the way. This is a very short version of what I've been researching this week. Major respect for anyone who has successfully navigated records and names in a language other than their own. Whew! Here is my post - http://www.libbyonthelabel.ca/2018/05/52-ancestors-week-20-another-language.html

Answer 11

I am not personally aware of anyone in my family who spoke another language.  However, when researching my paternal grandmother, Caroline Elizabeth (Freeman) Atkinson, I discovered her mother, Sarah (Wilhite) Freeman, was from a long line of Germans.  

The beginning of our line in what was to become the United States was Johann Michäel (Michael) "the immigrant" Willheit  born in Germany in 1671 and immigrated to the Virginia Colony in 1717.  He was my sixth great grandfather.  The surname has been spelled in a variety of ways over the years: Willheit, Wilhoit, Wilhite, etc. I am sure he, and probably his family and several generations of descendants, spoke German. Not sure when they became Americanized and quite speaking German. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Willheit-1

Answer 12

Uncle Fritz came from near Solingen, Germany with his mothers and brothers in September of 1909 to join his father who was working at the Camillus Cutlery in Camillus, New York. Uncle Fritz worked at the cutlery for some time, then bought a garage where he sold and repaired cars. He sold Nash cars, and Esso gasoline. I don't remember any accent, but do remember the grease under his fingernails! Throughout his life he remained friends with the other German family who traveled on the same ship, also to work in the knife factory.

Uncle Fritz taught me to count to 10 in German, and also to swear, which my Aunt was not happy about. He never could get me to try one his Limburger sandwiches. He did let me pump gas when I was not even 10 years old, and of course took me out in the boat fishing. See more in his profile https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schultz-4531 The picture below was taken at his camp on Oneida Lake in July of 1954.

Answer 13

Augustin Bullot (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bullot-34) is the most interesting linguist I can find and he is more of a "connection" than a family member. He was a surgeon on a French ship captured by the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and spoke French, English and Italian. 

https://feetuptimetothink.blogspot.com/2018/05/week-20-52-ancestors-another-language.html

Answer 14

How about someone who was surrounded by people speaking another language?  Detroit, Michigan was a city of immigrants packed with people speaking other languages around the turn of the 20^th century.

My great-uncle Ernest Hart and his wife Lucy were almost newlyweds in 1900 and living in the small town of Bancroft in Shiawassee County, Michigan where Ernest was a farmer.  By 1905 they had joined the flood of people moving to Detroit, Michigan where he was working as a clerk for the Michigan Central Railroad. 

On the 1910 U.S. Census, Ernest and Lucy are living on Ferry Street literally just around the corner from “Poletown”.  Looking at a few census pages for the people who were his neighbors, their and their parents nativity included: German-Polish, Russian-Yiddish, Russian-German, Austria-Serbian, Norwegian, Spanish, Austria-Croatian.  Many had immigrated just after 1900 and didn't speak English.

Unfortunately, there are gaps in the city directories available on-line so it isn’t clear exactly when he switched occupations.  In 1906 he is still a clerk at the railroad, but by 1909 he is a bookkeeper for the Hiram Marks Electric Co. and works his way up to a manager position by 1913.  He stays until at least 1920.  I found an advertisement for the business and among the items listed were telegraph instruments which may have been the bridge from the railroad to the electric company.

In 1922 he is a clerk at the Miller-Seldon Electric Company.  I found this picture of the Miller-Seldon Company building probably from around the time Ernest was working there.

Ernest and Lucy also kept moving further out from the core of the city.  About 1926 they built a home in the newly developed Martin Park Subdivision.  According to my mother it was “out in the country” when they first moved there.

 My mother also remembers that they shipped eggs to them from their farm by mail on the train from Durand to Detroit.  Apparently there was a big market for farm fresh eggs and Ernest was reselling them. 

Unfortunately the 1927, 1930 and 1935 directories just show he was an accountant and don’t give a company name so it isn't clear what he was doing during the Depression.  The value of their home dropped by half between the 1930 and 1940 Censuses so it must have been a difficult time for them.  Ernest died in 1946.

Answer 15

I seem to have. Been pondering on this for ages. As far as I am aware, none of my ancestors spoke another language. They were all born in England, and that’s where the stayed. That said, language, or at least dialect and people’s accents have sometimes made it hard to understand what was recorded in some records. One example of this related to my great grandfather, William Williams https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Williams-47597#  I first found him in the 1881 census in Durham, England, his place of birth was given as Coaleforshire. This was very frustrating, as the place does not exist. In 1891 his place of birth was The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, but when I first came across this I could not be sure that I had found the right family. Williams wife was Mary. They are common names and there are a lot of William and Mary Williams. I waited patiently for the release of the 1901 census, located the family, but found that William was not at home when the census was taken. It was not until the release of the 1911 census that it began to make sense. In this census William was born in Coleford, Gloucestershire. I believe that the Durham enumerator coul not understand William properly and ‘Coleford Sir’ became ‘Coaleforshire’ in 1881. Gloucestershire and Durham are quite a long way apart and in the days before radio and television people spoke quite differently in different parts of England even though they were all speaking the same language.

Comments

I just read this story while thinking about my answer to this question in 2020. Very interesting. Something like this happened a lot.

Answer 16

Most of the current and the younger generation speak very little of  other languages, but we have a smattering of various languages between us. A little German, Spanish Italian,Japanese, Indonesian, French and Dutch  

Our main family members with two languages are my aunt Erica who is from Germany therefore is fluent in German and English

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nowak-735

My mother in law Irene who learnt Spanish after retiring and still goes to Spain every year and is now 92 years old

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pearson-5439

Comments

Welcome to the 52 Ancestors challenge, Janet.

Answer 17

I don't know any of my direct ancestors who would have spoken another language as they were all English/Scottish, although I would consider those who were Glaswegians to speak a different language as I can't understand them!

So I have been research my step-father's ancestors and his maternal side were Welsh. Luckily the census recorded whether they spoke English, Welsh or both. My step grandmother Eiluned Jones and great grandmother Beatrice Jones could both speak English and Welsh, as could her Beatrice's parents Rees Jones and Elizabeth Davies

Answer 18

Since the topics are supposed to be open to interpretation ...

My grandmother, Florence, told my parents that her husbands grandmother, Philinda, said that her father was an Ohio Court Reporter and spoke seven languages. Her death certificate said his surname was Muir. You would think with a name like Philinda Muir, she should be easy to find. Nope. The first name is spelled a variety of ways and census takers and indexers messed up Muir so bad as to be unrecognizable. Really !! "Whehr" Years of browsing census data finally located Peter Muir and his wife Elizabeth/Betsy.

Funny thing about the court reporter who spoke seven languages. He was a day laborer and neither he nor his wife could read or write, according to the census date.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muir-2312

Answer 19

 https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Ohlenkamp-47

I am behind, but I am trying to catch up.

My second great-grandmother, Sophie Ohlenkamp arrived in the United in 1866 from Germany. She married my second great-grandfather, Herman Junker on December 19, 1868. 

They were in love with each other in Germany, but waited until they arrived in the United States before they were married.

Sophie spoke German when she arrived here and was slow to learn English. My grandmother never got to meet her, as Sophie died just 4 years before she was born, but family stories were told.

The German remained in the family and I remember as a little girl, grandma speaking to us a word here and there.

When I was a freshman in high school, my grandmother took me out to St. Paul's Cemetery, where her family is buried.  We went to Sophie headstone, and everything was written in German.

She also took me to her mother's headstone, and it was also in German. This was my first experience seeing headstones in a language other than English.

Answer 20

My 4x Great Grandfather was Jean Georges dit Chambre Walter.  

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Walter-3018

He wrote a Chronicle of the history of the glass makers of Eastern France / Western Germany in the 1700s that went back to the 1500s.  It has been published in 3 languages I know about:

English: 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Translation_of_Jean_Georges_dit_Chambre_Walter_Chronicle

French:    

http://wolf.greg.free.fr/documents/verriers.html

German:  http://wolf.greg.free.fr/documents/verriers-de.html