Errors we've found :(
(in First Edition)
Many were corrected in the 2nd edition; click here for typos in the 2nd edition. Many more were corrected in the 3rd printing; click here for typos in the "2nd plus" edition.
Page 11 - Constructed Languages and Fun Parodies list: Uncle Eli (Dr Seuss style)
Page 16 - The history on this page is not entirely correct. The true original location of the famous questions is not known. Questions were raised throughout the Seder, whenever something unusual happened, from the pouring of the second cup of wine onward. It's likely the Rabbis, who first wrote the "example" questions we now use, moved them to the Seder's beginning so they could be recited by an awake and alert child.
Page 26 - Suggestions for use: Coptic and Sahidic Aramaic have no connection to Kurdish.
Page 36 - Samaritan: Lines for the questions were printed in
the wrong order. Each should begin with the words on the second
line, continuing with the first line until this word –
– which is the first word of each second line (On this night,
etc).
Some quibble our statement that "Samaritan practice resembles Judaism" should instead describe it as another form of Judaism.
Page 38 - Old English: also contributing to the translation was Barbara Need, a graduate linguistics student at U of Chicago.
Page 42 - Ancient Greek: 3rd word in each question missing middle letter;
should be
; 4th word on second line of 3rd question missing same letter, should be
;
accent on 8th word (single letter) in fourth question incorrect, should be
.
Page 44 - Middle Egyptian: transliteration (wannāmun) in third question should be harpun.
Page 50 - Aramaic, Ancient: Alex Heppenheimer was 31 in 2003.
In the "roasted meat" question:
(1) the fourth word of Aramaic should be
and
(2) the third word of the modern Hebrew should be
like the line before.
Page 53 - Introduction: Some might interpret "Number of Speakers" paragraph as implying deaf, blind, mute people lack intellectual capacity. In many cases, their lack of language skills is due to being deprived of accessible education; when provided, they do as well as anyone else.
Aleph in aler-ley in second question missing vowel
and first nun was
the wrong form (nun sofit) in geveyntlekhn in fifth question
Page 63 - Vietnamese: last question, 7th word, should be
, and the last word should be
.
Page 68 - Ukrainian: last word of fourth question's first line should be
(no letter "y"), and the last 2
words of the fifth question's first line are better phrased
when reversed (prosto yimo):
Page 70 - Turkish picture caption: Istanbul's Ayasofya was the world's largest church for 1000 years. A mosque for another 480 years, it is now a museum.
Page 73 - Tigrinya: Vowels in the Hebrew transliteration at the end of
the third question were incorrect; should be
Page 76 - Thai: Transliteration is by Karla Allan.
Page 85 - Swedish: the printed version shows a transliteration only.
The translation is:
På alla andra nätter äter vi antingen jäst bröd eller matzah; på denna natt endast matzah.
På alla andra nätter äter vi alla sorts kryddor; på denna natt äter vi bittra kryddor.
På alla andra nätter doppar vi inte vår mat i kryddor; på denna natt doppar vi maten två gånger.
På alla andra nätter sitter vi upprätt eller lutar oss; på denna natt lutar vi oss alla.
På alla andra nätter äter vi på ett vanligt sätt; på denna natt äter vi med en speciell cermoni.
Page 90 - Tabassaran: Since the intro question wasn't translated, the English lines must all move upwards one sentence. The first translation shown is the 'matzah' question, the next is the 'herb' question, etc. The final one is the 'special ceremony' question (English shown on other pages), with the next-to-last translation being the 'reclining' question.
Page 105 - Picture caption: Florence's Basilica, world's largest Franciscan church, with its prominent Star of David, was designed by Jewish architect Niccolo Matas.
Second word should be transliterated otlichayetsya, third word as
eta.
Third word of each question is transliterated as drugiye.
The second phrase of each question is better rendered as A v'etu noch.
In the first and second questions, the
third word of the second line should start
with 
, not 
.
Mi edem in first question should be m'yedim, like other lines.
Second question: fourth word should be
like other lines;
next-to-last word of first line is transliterated better as lubuyu; and last word of second line as gorkuyu.
Third question: next-to-last word of first line is transliterated
yeyo.
Fifth question: remove 
from first line;
replace first two words of second line with
(transliteration
A v'etu) like other lines; and
next-to-last word of second line should be
with a transliteration of rityualihnaya.
Page 111 - Romansch: valley of Voderrhein: should be Vorderrhein.
Page 112 - Romanian: A cedilla [¸] should be under the 't' in noptile.
Page 120 - Portuguese: The word ersvas in herbs question should be ervas.
Page 122 - Polish: 2nd half of each line should start ale w; 1st half of dipping question should read noc my nie niezanurzamy nawet jeden raz.
Page 125 - Pashto, Northern: Some communities in Afghanistan use a
somewhat different character set. The intro question is shown:
Page 142 - Navajo: Paul Zolbrod. (Spelled correctly in Acknowledgments.)
Page 150 - Mende: Due to a typesetting error, all š letters should be written as ɔ. Click here for the corrected translation.
Page 158 - Maltese: First two words shouldn't have a space; next-to-last word in herbs question should be morri; last word in reclining question should be lagenba.
Page 159 - Malinke: "In the recordings" should refer to Daya, not Fodé.
Page 168 & 362 - Luiseño: Eric's last name is spelled Elliott.
Page 174 - Lenape: There are now only 3 living speakers. The language rank is now 6,611.
Page 203 - Japanese: Last words of dipping question should be:
1st phrase:
hitashitewa tabemasenga
and 2nd phrase: hitashite tabemasu
Page 206 - Italian: First line should start Perchè questa notte è diversa before dalle altre. All remaining lines should begin with In tutte before le altre, and in all remaining lines, dell'anno should be removed. In the matzah question, lievitito should be spelled lievitato, and the last word should be azzimo. (For consistency with the original text, mangiamo can be removed in the 2nd half of the matzah, bitter herbs and reclining questions.) In the bitter herbs question, the words after mangiamo should be tutti i tipi di verdure. Dipping question: replace le erbe in niente with just mai. Final question: replace con with in.
Page 207 - Israeli Sign Language shares many features and vocabulary with German Sign Language, as ISL's first teachers were influenced by a special school for Jewish deaf children opened in Germany in 1873 by Marcus Reich.
Page 214 - Hungarian: The dipping question should be:
ma pedig kétszer is?
Page 220 - Hebrew: Due to a font typesetting error, schwa vowels appeared as a segol. Corrections also apply to pages 50, 73, 254 and 318. Click here for the corrected questions text and corrected Ashkenazi/Sephardi comments.
Page 230 - Greek: Number of speakers was 12,258,540, not 112 million.
Page 232 - German: The term for High German should be spelled Hochdeutsch.
Page 233 - Georgian: In the intro question, the 2nd word should be
, the 5th word should
be deleted, and the last word should be 
(red shows changed
letters). In first half of matzah question, 5th word should be 
and 6th word 
. In 1st half of herbs,
7th word of should be 
and 5th word of 2nd half 
. In 1st half of dipping,
5th and 6th words (and new 7th word) is 
; last 4 words deleted.
2nd half of dipping, 4th word is 
. In 1st half reclining, 5th through 9th words should be
;
4th and 5th words in
2nd half are deleted. In 2nd half of ceremony, last two words are 
. Finally, all ending colons
are periods.
Page 237 - Gaelic, Irish: The letter 'h' represents aspiration. When written in traditional letters, this is shown via a raised dot above the letter. Click here for the corrected translation.
Page 248 - Farsi, Western:
All final (left-most) and middle characters that are a vertical bar
should connect to prior letter, as in
and
rather than
and
6th word in the matzah question (count from right) should have
an accent:
6th word of the first herbs line should be
and
next-to-last words in the herbs question should be
(first line) and
(second line).
The transliteration of the second herbs line should be ama dar in shab
faghat sabzijat-e talkh mikhorim.
The dipping question should be:
and the second dipping line should be transliterated as nemizanim vali
dar in shab ma dobar sabizi-jat ra dar ab-namk mizanim.
The last word in the second reclining line should be replaced with
Page 255 - Ebira: Ibrahim is from Athens, Greece; drawing by Stephanie Black.
Page 256 - Dutch: The town is spelled Volendam.
All incidences of aten should be eten; dipping
question should read:
vanavond dippen we twee keer.
Page 265 - Croatian: The recline question should be se oslanjamo.
Page 267 - Cornish: The bitter herbs question should be:
an nosweyth ma, losow hwerow hepken.
Page 271 - Chipewayan: There should be a horizontal line over both e's in the first word, Wegonen, not just the first one.
Page 287 - Cajun: Every "les autres nuit" should be nuits.
Page 290 - Bulgarian: Add to the end of the matzah question:
The dipping question should read:
with neh mokrim added to the transliteration after vednuhzh.
Page 297 - Bengali: Some letters incorrectly replaced by similar-looking letters. (Actively looking for someone proficient in Bengali writing to provide corrections - if you know such a person, please contact us!)
Page 298 - Belarussian:
intro line, 4th and 5th words should be
, with a transliteration of
adroznivaetsa ad;
second word Bce
in each question should be
;
1st question, 8th word should be
;
2nd question, last word should be
- transliteration for
the last 2 words as tolki gorkuju;
4th question, 11th word should be
;
5th question, 8th word (liuboj) should be removed, and 7th word
of second line should be
;
Page 311 - Armenian: Transliteration errors: all hyphenated words are separate words; 2nd half of each phrase should read eesk aees geesheruh instead of eesk aeesor; in 1st question, phrase beginning with ootoom should read ootel tuhkhmora kam tuhkhmorahatsuh; second phrase should end meeaeen tuhkhmorahatsuh; in 2nd, banjareghen is better represented as kanacheghen, and phrase should end meeaeen daruh darnaham kanacheghen; in 3rd, both angam's are better represented as ankam, add kanacheghen after tatakhoom, last 2 words should be yergoo ankam; in 4th, henvadz and henvoom are better represented as henkvadz and henkvoom; in 5th, replace buhnakan with sovorakan, replace masnavor araroghtsoochamp with darber nuhshanagootyamp. Contact us for corrected Armenian letters.
Page 312 & 313 - Aramaics: Lishanid Noshan and Zakho have no connection to Kurdish.
Page 316-317 - Arabic: Not a correction. If you want to read the typeset Arabic in addition to enjoying this beautiful calligraphy, see it on page 89 under the Tarafit translation.
Page 318 - Judeo-Iraqi Arabic: In translation notes, the Hebrew word yirakot after ha-layla belongs on the next line (shih-ahr yirakot). The word Bagdad is more commonly spelled Baghdad. See this for the corrected Heberw and Ashkenazi/Sephardi comment.
Page 338 - Sfat HaBet: A phrase in the English was left in "plaintext," rather than being Ababibi'd. The correction is left as an exercise for the reader.
Page 345 - Symbolic Logic: Extensively rewritten - contained here.
Page 345 - Symbolic Logic: Extensively rewritten - contained here.
Page 340 - Quenya: "She" should be He. (Helge is male.)
Page 341 - Pig Latin: The second and fifth Hebrew words were missing hiriq vowel – the single dot "ee" – under the alephs of ishtanahnay and ikolmay; vowels under initial alephs didn't show spelling for an English-speaker's reading of Hebrew (no traditional Hebrew word can start with the "ih" vowel – a different vowel was printed); some letters were missing the shva vowel that indicates shva na or mute vowel; and the pig-latinification of some words was incorrect. Click here for the full text with corrections shown in magenta.
Page 354 - Braille, Hebrew: Consistent with other brailles, Hebrew Braille is read from left to right, unlike printed Hebrew.
Page 363 - Dr Barbara Need should be Barbara Need; she did not get her PhD.
Additional minor typos on pages 26, 73 and others.
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