The Western ideal of monogamous husband and wife is not universal.

There is, for example, no word for father in Mosuo (China). The nearest translation for a male parental figure is axia. An axia has a series of night-time trysts with a woman, after which he returns home to his mother.

Any children resulting from these liaisons are raised in the woman’s household. There are no fathers, husbands or marriages in Mosuo society. Brothers take care of their sisters’ children and act as their fathers. Brothers and sisters live together all their lives in their mothers’ homes.

Who better than the pragmatic French would construct a precise terminology for love as business, ranking from a passe raide, the basic price for a sex session, to the kangourou, a prospective client who hesitates (hops around) before deciding on a girl.

When it comes to those who ply their trade, there are many equally specific terms. An escaladeuse de braguette is, literally a zipper climber; a beguineuse is an unreliable prostitute; a wagonnière is a woman who solicits on trains; a truqueur means a rentboy who blackmails his clients; while a cocotte-minute is a pro who turns many tricks very quickly (literally, a pressure cooker). There is even an expresión, commencer à rendre la monnaie, to show signs of age, which is said of prostitutes who in better days didn’t have to give change for large notes.

The concept of ‘so-so’ is found in many languages, and often in a similarly repetitive form:

it’s tako tako in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian,
aixa aixa in Catalan,
cosi cosi in Italian,
wale wale in Chipwyan (Canada),
hanter hanter in Cornisa,
thik thik in Gujarati (India),
hai hao in Mandarin,
jako tako in Polish,
ma ma in Japanese,
ithin ithin in Sinhala (Sri Lanka),
soyle boyle in turkish,
atal atal in Occitan (France),
asina asina in Asturias (Spain),
elae belae in Azeri (Azerbaijan)
and azoy azoy in Yiddish.

Words don’t necessarily keep the same meaning. Simple descriptive words such as ‘rain’ or ‘water’ are clear and necessary enough to be unlikely to change. Other more complex words have often come on quite a journey since they were first coined:

Al-kuhul (Arabic) originally, powder to darken the eyelids; then taken up by alchemists to refer to any fine powder; then applied in chemistry to any refined liquid obtained by distillation or purification, especially to alcohol of wine, which then was shortened to alcohol.

Chauffer (French) to heat; then meant the driver or fan early steam-powered car; subsequently growing to chauffeur.

Hashhashin (Arabic) one who smokes hashish; came to mean assassin.

Manu operare (Latin) to work by hand; then narrowed to the act of cultivating; then to the dressing that was added to the soil, manure.

Prestige (French) conjuror’s trick; the sense of illusion gave way to that of glamour which was then interpreted more narrowly as social standing or wealth.

Sine nobilitate (Latin) without nobility; originally referred to any member of the lower classes; then to somebody who despised their own class and aspired to membership of a higher one; thus snob.

Theriake (Greek) an antidote against a poisonous bite; came to mean the practice of living medicine in sugar syrup to disguise its taste; thus treacle.

The Apache people of the USA name the parts of cars to correspond to parts of the body. The front bumper is daw, the chin of jaw; the front fender is wos, the shoulder; the rear fender is gun, the arm and hand; the chasis is chun, the back; the rear wheel is ke, the foot. The mouth is ze, the petrol-pipe opening. The nose is chee, the bonnet. The eyes are inda, the headlights. The forehead is ta, the roof.

The metaphorical naming continues inside. The car’s electrical wiring is tsaws, the veins. The battery is zik, the liver. The petrol tank is pit, the stomach. The radiator is jisoleh, the lung; and its hose, chih, the intestine. The distributor is jih, the heart.

George Bernard Shaw said “England and America are two countries separated by a common language”. It may be an awkward situation borrowing a cigarette in the US if you are an English tourist there. The word ‘tramp’ describes different people in each country, and ‘spunk’ could not only mean ‘to get up and go’ if you are an American in the UK. You don’t even need to love your mistress.

Eddie Izzard talks about these two confusing languages with a great sense of humor. Enjoy!

On the tiny mountainous Canary Island of La Gomera there is a language called Silbo Gomero that uses a variation of whistles instead of words (in Spanish silbar means to whistle). There are tour ‘vowels’ and tour ‘consonants’, which can be strung together to form more than tour thousand ‘words’. This birdlike means of communication is thought to have come over with early African settlers over 2500 years ago. Able to be heard at distances of up to two miles, the silbador was until recently a dying breed. Since 1999, however, Silbo has been a required language in La Gomera schools.

The Mazateco Indians of Oxaca, Mexico, are frequently seen whistling back and forth, exchanging greetings or buying and selling goods with no risk of misunderstanding. The whistling is not really a language ore even a code; it simple uses the rhythms and pitch of ordinary speech without the words. Similar whistling languages have been found in Greece, Turkey and China, whilst other forms of wordless communication include the talking drums (ntumpane) of the Kele in Congo, the xylophones used by the Northern Chin of Burna, the banging on the roots of trees practised by the Melanesians, the yodeling of the Swiss, the humming of the Chekiang Chinese and the smoke signals of the American Indians.

Some people need to travel to a foreign country whose language is completely unknown by them. In those cases a phrasebook seems like a handy temporary solution… or maybe not… Have a look at this poor Hungarian immigrant by the Monty Python:

When we hear the word technology we tend to think about some new product: some new kind of music device, a computer, a robot… It is harder to think about an old television set or a vinyl player. But although strange…we can consider them as part of technology.

The thing is that the invention of the printer around the 15^th century took its new product, the book, to people who had never even thought about one. That was clearly a new technology… and much more revolutionary than a new mp3 player.

This amusing video jokes on what I’ve been saying…enjoy!

It is a fact that the English country has spread all over the world. No matter where you are you can read all kind of signs in this language. It is particularly interesting the case of pop music. Many times people understand the signs even though they can’t read them directly. The same thing happens with music. Not the majority of people understand the lyrics, but they do enjoy the music. This video pictures the situation.