Non­fic­tion

300 Ways to Ask the Four Ques­tions: From Zulu to Abkhaz

Mur­ray Spiegel and Rick­ey Stein
  • Review
By – April 20, 2012
Ma nish­tana may be the most famil­iar words in the entire seder, and now it’s pos­si­ble to recite them in 300 lan­guages, liv­ing, dead, and cre­at­ed. A thir­ty-year effort to find speak­ers around the world to trans­late the ques­tions into their own lan­guages has result­ed in 300 Ways to Ask the Four Ques­tions, an exu­ber­ant com­pi­la­tion by Mur­ray Siegel and Rick­ey Stein. Siegel and Stein present not only the trans­la­tions but also infor­ma­tion on the lan­guage, the trans­la­tor, the speak­er, and the tran­scriber. The book comes with both a CD and a DVD that have trans­la­tion high­lights, games, quizzes, chants — and more. Irre­sistible to any lan­guage lover and a trove of seder novelties.


Maron L. Wax­man, retired edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor, spe­cial projects, at the Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry, was also an edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor at Harper­Collins and Book-of-the-Month Club.

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