h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, it now goes ponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponyponypony

that explains the terminology

.. I didn't find the pony paragraph

that'd be easy to translate

so mala is responsible for me questioning the whole thing about aisles and such?

i bet she was just ing around

It's not my fault English doesn't have perfectly good words like Seitenschiff

seitenschiff is actually danish of course. should really be spelled sideskib but that is a minor technicality

but isn't a sideskib/aisle supposed to be placed at right angles to the midterskib/nave?

so that the combined outlines of the different parts of the church seen from above form a cross?

they don't in rakvere the way i see the photos available and the way i remember seeing the church the times i have been in rakvere (not that i've seen it from above, but that's beside the point)

hati can correct me if i'm wrong (or others if others are) but are there or are there not three parallel gangways in the church? one down the middle from the organ up to the altar and one along each of the two walls?

No, that's a transept - the part that runs at right angles to the nave. (Querschiff/Querhaus in German)

The Seitenschiffe (there can be none or lots!) run parallel to the Mittelschiff, which are merely, boringly, and confusingly side aisles in English. They are classed into nave-aisles, transept-aisles or choir-aisles, depending on where they run.

The Langhaus (nave) is the bit between the door and the Querschiff, (where they intersect is the Vierung/crossing) and the Chor (chancel) is beyond that, often ending in an Apsis (apse - the round bit.)

This has been your architecture lesson for the day

*faints while making notes*

i see

well, even if i have been in hundreds of churches (literally!) i knew this was going to be a tricky one, what with all the technical terms in english. foreign words, sometimes sounding and meaning the same as here, at other times being 'false friends' in that they only sound the same but mean something different, sometimes even completely different, sometimes even the exact opposite

oh well, this is often the lot of a translator. nothing much to do about it

didn't help that i had never been inside the church and only remembered the outside vaguely

thanks for your help

even if it means i'll have to go over my translation once more

stand by for the next edition, hati

This is fairly useful:

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/architecture.htm

(The most useless dictionary I currently have bookmarked is a Swedish to Wollof one. Wollof is spoken in parts of Senegal and the Gambia.)

oh good, then perhaps milla will translate my danish text into both swedish and wollof

Oh, I'm so happy you hinted at wollof dictionaries I've been searching for those for quite some time 2 seconds at least

the Dutch wikipedia has some information on churches, architecture and the combination of those.
is it really built as a basilica type church? Was there a bishop in Rakvere?

i was wondering about that also. i will write a letter to ask my dear friend, the chief architect of basilica churches in ghana

A basilica-type church in architecture is one with a centre nave and two or more side aisles separated from the main one by colonades.

It has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic "Basilica", which is a church (of any architectural type) that's got special privileges.

So yes, basilica is quite correct

( Who knew I'd actually put all this useless knowledge to good use someday? )

the picture of the organ convinced me. it shows two colonnades

about the side aisles: i asked a learned colleague of mine this morning and he agreed about the angle thingy, but apparently the terms side aisles have at times been (wrongfully) used for both side aisles and transepts

i shall keep this in mind next time i write about a church

Sometimes, the side aisles continue around the transept

Here's St-Maria-Im-Kapitol in Cologne: http://www.maria-im-kapitol.de/kirche/kirche_01e.htm

look who's the now

i'll go to bed before i transmogryf into one as well

g'night

ah .. and there's also good news I found a website on Wollof grammar not even in Swedish

*Now* who's the geek?

I wouldn't know that by the way, did you know that the English-Wollof dictionary doesn't hold a word for Geek?