Язык в тесте, tongue in dough, says the inscription on this sign. Unfortunately English language seem to have been in short supply in Sochi before the opening. The mistranslation to English is a bit unfortunate, although in English the word “tongue” can also be used for “language” and although “language” is rooted in Latin “lingua”.
But even then the “test” would be hard to explain1. It comes from тесто, the Russian word for dough. And yes it literally means “tongue (jazyk/язык) in (v/в) dough (tiestie/тесте)”.
All in all I didn’t find the bitching about #SochiFails not too funny. It can be if you look at someone like Putin and think about it, but I am sure a lot of hardworking people have worked long hours to make this happen. Not to mention the people who have been ousted due to the winter games and the environmental damage that was done.
// Оливер 🙂
- well, not really. The word for “test” is spelled the same in Russian. So it all boils down to missing the context 🙂 [↩]