Margaret Marks, of the excellent legal translation blog Transblawg, has posted an appeal on behalf of Peter Griffin‘s bilingual edition of the Catalan novel Tocats pel foc (Touched by Fire) by Manuel de Pedrolo. Apparently the novel has received practically no advertising, and the remaining 500 or so copies may be pulped unless it starts selling. It’s a little pricey ($29.95), but if you know anyone interested in Catalan literature and/or bilingual editions you’d be doing a mitzvah to tell them about it.
While I’m sending you to Transblawg, let me also mention the post Bavarian dialect dying out / Das Bairische stirbt aus, which discusses the decay of German regional dialects:
In the 1970s, the use of dialect was discouraged in schools because it was believed to hinder education. Now it appears that speaking dialect and writing standard German makes people express themselves more flexibly and makes it easier for them to learn a foreign language.
Thank you kindly, Languagehat (and Margaret)!