As we wandered the Old Town in Brno today we noticed signs stencilled on walls. I thought they were ‘If you park here I WILL let down your tyres !!’  type-signs. It turns out they’re actually poems. Language matters, and little touches like this can make a city special. Why haven’t either of my readers told me what a great city Brno is?

Language also matters when negotiating castles and castle museums. Today’s focus was Spilbek Castle – once a royal palace, a jail, the barracks for German soldiers in the second world war and so on. We took an indirect route to the castle, courtesy of limited signage. We eventually found our way ‘in’ but that didn’t mean we found our way ‘in’ to the museum with ease. It felt like we were lost a lot of the time – quite possibly because we were : yes, an absence of signage.

Given almost all of the exhibition was annotated with Czech explanations, we filled in the gaps with our own narratives. The only tour guide available spoke, what I believe to be, an early-medieval Moravian dialect. (She was kind enough to let me take her photograph which I have included below) I am not yet fluent in some of the early Czech languages, so unfortunately couldn’t thank her in her native tongue.

Fortunately however, at the museum we stumbled upon a photographic display of the works of John Heartfield – a German who challenged the Nazi narrative with great courage. He was forced from Germany in 1933, walked to Czechoslavia, and managed to escape to England in 1938. Herein, his language of photography provided him a compelling medium to fight Fascism during the second world war.  Language matters.

So too, deciphering food choices at the local Christmas markets requires discernment – particularly in the absence of any Czech relatives. If not careful, one could buy a sauerkraut – filled potato pancake too big for the Lord and Lady to delicately consume. Or the Farley C-S might inadvertently purchase a one kilo piece of grilled pork that required solid and prolonged attention. Yes language also matters in the culinary world.

Brno is a wonderful city to wander, the old town is special and the locals have been particularly welcoming. The Christmas markets are just metres away from our front door, and perhaps the more relaxed family atmosphere these markets induce in the city centre permeates other parts of Brno. And so, in the spirit of Christmas, I have resolved to continue to share my native language – but from now on will speak English louder and slower in the hope of making myself understood by the locals. After all, language matters….

Farley C-S

Our tour guide Marietta. Unfortunately she only spoke a form of early Czech which I struggled to translate.