The Greek Eye

So I am pretty sure most of us do not analize every single word we say in our mother tounge.
Its so natural for us to just speak communicate joke defend encourage correct in the language we've grown up without looking at borrowed words, analizing idioms and disconecting conjoined words.

Even when youve grow up with 2 or more languages you often dont see things until people who are learning that language bring it to your attention.
Or when you teach someone a language you often dont know how to respond when you dont know WHY certain words mean certain things and why they are used in that certain way.

So the other day Brittnea and I went to Luque. Luque is known for the silver they sell. There is this one principle street that has like 20 jewlery stores. Beautiful expensive artisental cheap silver with some gold is what you will find. And so I was looking for something small but profoundfully meaningful. So I started looking for the letter "Y" to add as a charm to my necklace.
Y is the initial for "Ysapy" which is my name in Guarani. Which is just one of the many indeginous languages spoken in Paraguay. Its the most prodominant one. Pronounced "UHsapbUH."(from my phonetic understanding) For those of you who don't yet know, Rocio is the spanish word for morning dew.
There are many designs of letters you can find in all the different stores. Everytime I went in a store I would ask "Ustedes tienen el inicia 'y griega'?" "Do yall have the letter 'y'?" I said it so many times that all of a sudden I turned to Brittnea and said/asked in a half rhetorical kind of way "Do you think the 'y griega' is the 'greek i'?"
Of course when you WRITE it, there's no question. But how many of us have written out phonetically and or the actual spelling of each letter of the alphabet? So I started thinking "Well spanish and english, amongst other languages, use Roman letters." Parts of the Bible is written in Greek and Jesus lived in the Roman Emire. So thats basic evidence that Roman and Greek writings/script are related.
Books have been written about these conncections. Im going to go look for one to read. Its just an observation.

BUT so thats an example of how the smallest things, down to the writing and pronounciation of a letter, makes you look into the world of words and why things are written they way they are, why words are used the way they are, why words mean the things they mean. And or why certain words mean one thing but depending on context it can mean something different. And how is it that that particular word can transendend its own original meaning. Does it depend at all WHO the person is thats saying it? Could that word mean different things in different parts of the country? Or different meaning in same language but different country? ie the US of A and England. All this is speaking soley of one language.
What about translation of one word in different languages. Every language can have its own use of that one word. OR same word same meaning but different cultural context.
And you can go into subcultures and "third cultures."
As to keep my brain from exploding I will give another example.

Another example is listening to spanish speakers speak english and when they say something grammatically wrong and what not. If you translate liternally into spanish what they just said, it makes perfect sense and vice versa.

And so I've been playing/learning German and Guarani. For example there is no "Thank you" in Guarani. I've asked a lot of Guarani speakers and they say "Eeeeeeeeehhhmmmmm....." and then I was learning phrases in German and I asked "How do you say 'Nice to meet you?'in German?" And there really isnt a translation or form to say/translate that. And in Japanese there are 2 phrases you say when you meet someone and one of them translates to "Please be nice to me"

Its all SOOO interesting!

Heres a joke.
Im sure many of you have heard this one but I want to share it since were talking about languages.
What do you call someone that speaks 2 languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone that speaks 3 languages? Trilingual
What do you call someone that speaks 4 or more languages? Polyglot
What do you call someone that speaks 1 language? American.

This is in no offense to those who don't happen to speak more than one language. Learning a language is not the easiest thing in the world. Instead be encouraged in being open to different cultures and ways and walks of life. And be encouraged to support your local missionary!

Thanks for reading!