Does every portrait tell a story? The origins of the English word "portrait" trace back to the French portraire, which comes from the phrase trait pour trait, meaning "line by line," describing the process of creating a likeness.
Here is a centuries-old Armenian riddle by Nerses Shnorhali.
No feathers and no wings it has,
Swifter than a bird it flies,
From land to land it tours and turns,
With companions it returns.
When in the second half of the last century Isaac Bashevich Singer was awarded a Noble Prize for Literature, he raised an interesting question: “People ask me often, ‘Why do you write in a dying language?’” And he tried to explain: “There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life… e