Umm, What?

Needless to say, traveling can be fun, adventurous, and mysterious. One aspect of travel that adds much mystery is language. During middle school and high school I had studied Spanish and a little French. While in Russia after I graduated high school all that studying and practice was useless. Every written, spoken, even unspoken word made me feel so isolated but as much as it pushed me out of my comfort zone, the curiosity of it all it pulled me right back in. I was so intrigued by this world or words and body language I did not know or understand. Of course after the trip when I went to college I immediately enrolled in elementary Russian courses.

Foreign language can add much unneeded discomfort to a trip. There are the obvious reasons such as getting lost more easily and the emergency status of not knowing how to locate a bathroom. However, understanding the language can help you not only avoid those situations but can also open a window into that place's culture.

Many of you may have heard how the Inuits have numerous words for "snow." That's a pretty obvious example of how language reflects the culture. What's better is words that their meaning and history can explain the mindset of a people. In Russia to say "to marry" is "жениться" (zhenit'sya). "Woman" is "женщина" (zhenshchina) while "behind" is "за" (za). So you can see how "to marry" in Russian came from "the woman behind." This comes from the longtime belief of the woman standing behind her man and the man being in control. *I learned this example from my Russian language professor who was Russian herself.

I'm not trying to say words such as compound nouns illuminate a society. I'm saying understanding words and how, why, when, and who uses them can help give a foreigner a leg up on not feeling, well, so foreign.

Here is a link to another blog I found via Pinterest that takes a more linguistic view on the subject: Click Me!
(the site is also where I found the picture)