New street signs with Massachusett language translation will be installed in East Cambridge

Boston Globe ^ | December 6, 2023 | By Molly Farrar

[ConservativeStatement]

After more than 2,500 Cambridge residents made their voices heard during the participatory budget vote in 2021, more than 70 new street signs in East Cambridge will include translations into the native Massachusett language.

Sage Carbone, a Cambridge resident, proposed the participatory budget item to add traditional Native translations to city signs, along with commemorating Native American sites in Cambridge with markers.

“Any representation is missing,” she said. Carbone is a member of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island with Nipmuc, Massachusett ancestry.

[escapefromboston]

Native language for east Cambridge ? must be in Portuguese

[wildcard_redneck]

Waste of money.

[Prince of Space]

How many tribal members live in MA these days? What’s the point of adding signs if nobody can understand them? And does MA really have nothing else to spend taxpayers’ dollars on?

[Paladin2]

That Haaqahhhvarrrd Gay woman is a witch and need to be historically Mass. appropriately treated.

[broken_clock]

Native like, “paaahk the caaah heeeah”?

[rfp1234]

What kind of script will they use for the native language?
Surely not the roman alphabet, that would be appropriation.

[cgbg]

“paaahk the caaah heeeah”

Yup—future Babylon Bee article....

[ConservativeStatement]

[Eccl 10:2]

Speed Limit

Wicked Fast

[rlmorel]

I completely didn’t get what they were driving at. I thought the signs would say, if translated into “Massachusetts Language”, something like:

“Entering Cambridge”

“Empty your wallet here and grovel because you are white”

[rlmorel]

“Ahqueesh” rhymes with “Aw Jeez”

[bgill]

She’s right. All 7,139 languages of the world should be on every street sign. English should be demoted down to about #4683 down the pole.

[cgbg]

“Officer—Ahqeesh means “go if the coast is clear” in my native language. I dindu nothink!”

[freeandfreezing]

How does translating the street signs of 1st through 8th street in East Cambridge have anything to do with Native Americans who lived in that area in the past? They didn't have those streets, and they didn't name paths by using numbers.

This sounds more like maintaining a great historical tradition of Cambridge - somebody's cousin runs a sign making company and they need money for their daughter's college next year. So the city definitely needs to spend $20,000 on signs nobody can read.

The real history lesson would be the back story behind who gets the money, and why the signs aren't in a language like Italian, Portuguese, or the language of one of the many groups of people who actually made that neighborhood.

[Eccl 10:2]

While we’re at it, why is it the Boston Celtics (like sell-ticks) but it’s Celtic (like kell-tick) music?

[x]

“Kell-tick” would make it harder to sell tix.

[Mark17]

I thought they would use Arabic.

[SamAdams76]

If the people of Cambridge really wanted to honor the Indians, they would all abandon their automobiles and mount horses. They would abandon their comfortable homes and live in teepees.

That I would like to see.

[x]

Sage Carbone?

America has a long tradition of Italian Indians going back to Frank deKova and Iron Eyes Cody.

When they said "street signs," I thought they mean signs with the names of streets on them.

STOP/AQUEESH is bound to cause confusion and accidents.