Language
I have always been fascinated by languages, the way they travel across the world evolving, morphing and adapting to their new environments, merging with new languages, sometimes dieing. They leave audible tracks of the migrations of people, tell us where individuals are from, their education, upbringing and attitudes. They are living history. Some are relatively pure and untouched where the native speakers have been isolated, some like English are a mix of many others displaying many roots.

Traveling through Europe you start to notice that the languages we think of as national are really just the dominant languages imposed by the victors of earlier wars. The language that most people call Spanish is actually Castillian. There are five major languages in the geographical area known as Spain, the others are Catalan, Galician, Asturian and Basque, each of which has dialects. Italy has among others, Italian (Tuscan), Sardinian, Sicilian, Ligurian, Neapolitan, Lombard, Piedmontese, Emiliano-Romagnolo.
The Breton of France speak a language that is most closely related to Cornish and Welsh. Cornish although it has been revived, is to all intents and purposes extinct, with only about 400 people speaking it fluently. Breton shares about 80% of words with Cornish and about 70% with Welsh.

We have the soldiers of the Roman Empire to thank for the commonality of the European languages, speaking Vulgar Latin and changing forever the linguistic history of everywhere they conquered. Many of the similarities are still there today.

The Spanish word for address is dirección. I thought nothing of this when I started to learn the language. Then I arrived in Costa Rica, where outside the centre of major cities there are no street names, house numbers or post codes (zip numbers). Here are some examples of addresses in San Jose (in English): 700m South and 100m North of supermarket Saretto, Escazu; Apartment 3, 200M below Rancho Macho, Santa Ana.
Addresses really are directions which is why the Spanish word for address and the word for direction is the same. There are still addresses in San Jose given as directions from El Higueron, a famous fig tree which has long since gone. So as you can imagine newcomers to the area might find things a little confusing.
The last time I left Toronto for San Jose, my colleague from Costa Rica, Ricardo was mostinsistentt that I wrote down the address of the office here so he could find it on his own or get there by Taxi. I said "look Ricardo, it's easy, its number XXXX Jane Street." Ricardo told me that Canadian addresses were confusing for him because they didn't tell you where the trees were or the closest ranch or river or anything.
I think he was worried that without landmarks the taxi drivers would never find the place. Having experienced Toronto Taxi drivers I quite agree with him and can see the advantages of the Costa Rican address style.

Spanish is a very confusing language for the English speaking native, there are fourteen tenses, a different verb form for each person, masculine and feminine nouns, some of which change gender between singular and plural e.g. el agua, las aguas . In fact there aren't really many Spanish that fully understand Spanish grammar. It has has to be difficult really, Vulgar Latin mixed with Arabic, what a combination! The history of Moorish occupation is still betrayed by the language in pronunciation and some of the words. The Spanish exclamation Ojalá (Portuguese Oxalá) meaning 'I wish' or 'I hope' is derived from "law šá lláh" or as Muslims today say Insha'Allah meaning "If Allah wills it".

Much like the application of all rules and regulations in Latin countries, the language rules are also mostly guidelines and you can never really rely on any to be solid. Most nouns ending in an 'e' or an 'o' are masculine, most nouns ending in an 'a' are feminine. Sometimes the ending indicates the gender e.g. el chico - 'the boy', la chica - 'the girl', el gato - 'the tom cat', la gata - 'the she cat'. But this doesn't always hold true.

A friend of mine, Nuala rides horses, the Spanish word for horse is caballo. Nuala was at the stables and was going to take a mare out for a ride. She didn't say Voy a montar mi caballo, 'I am going to ride my horse' because it was a mare and thinking it might be better she applied the language rule swapped the 'o' for an 'a' and announced to peels of laughter from those present Voy a montar mi caballa which means 'I am going to ride my mackerel'.

Someone else I know went in to a butchers when they first arrived in Spain. It was full of happy Spanish women out doing their morning shopping. He wanted to buy a chicken. The Spanish word for chicken is pollo. So he waited for is turn and announced to the lady working behind the counter Quiero una polla grande! the women in the shop started laughing and the woman working behind the counter asked Que grande? or 'How large?' He hadn't realised that the slip of the tongue which is the difference between pollo and polla made the difference between asking for a large chicken and stating that he would like a big penis.

On another note, my cousin Mark lives on the Welsh island Anglesey home to the town with the longest Railway Station name and possibly URL in Britain: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which is Welsh for 'St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave'. This name is of course so long that it is surprising that the Germans have not reappropriated it for themselves.

The Germans are well known for the mercilessness of their almost limitless compound nouns, the longest official ones being: Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz which means Law on delegation of supervision duties for marking of cattle and labeling of beef and Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft which means the association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services.

Bastards!

English is constantly evolving and unlike the French or the wannabe French Québécoise , the English seem happy with the adoption of new words such as punani (which is a fantastic word) from immigrant populations and the evolution of the meaning of existing words.


Booyakasha!

Punani is the name of a village in Sri Lanka (as well).