This past weekend I was riding in a moto-taxi (basically, a super light weight, Indian made, three wheeled motorcycle that has a bench seat in the back for passengers, and is rapidly becoming ubiquitous in smaller Honduran cities due to its gas efficiency) in Ocotepeque and got into a discussion with the driver about what I was doing in Honduras and what it was like adjusting to life in the country. This is a conversation I have at least once a week, and I have established a set of stock answers that I can rattle off almost without thinking about it (ex. Yes, it was hard to adjust to the food, but now I love tortillas, and no, in America we do not just eat all of our food out of cans… no, I am not doing an internship, I already have my university degree and chose of my own free will to come here and work for about 5,000 Lempiras [about 250 USD] a month… and no, this is not a punishment because I committed a crime in the USA, ect.). In this particular conversation, the driver asked me a commonly asked question, “Was it hard to learn Spanish, because we have so many words for the same thing, whereas in English each thing only has one name?” I always find this question annoying because it is based on completely incorrect assumptions, both about the English language, as well as what is difficult about learning Spanish. It is incorrect, first off, in assuming that English has only one way of referring to any given thing (I am always curious as to how the people who tell me this, as if it were a definite fact, are completely sure that English is like this, considering none of them speak a word of it). This can be disproved rapidly; for example we have a come up with a multitude of ways to refer to money over the years (currency, tender, bucks, cash, bills, dollars, green, cabbage, clams, dead presidents, … ect). It is also incorrect in assuming that this is why we would have trouble learning Spanish, and in doing this, overlooks the numerous differences between the two languages, that actually prove to be the serious stumbling blocks for non-native speakers. These include, among other things, the existence of gender in Spanish (all words are masculine of feminine and thus one must use know when to use “el” vs. “la” for “the”, and when to use “un” vs. “una” for “a”), the difference in pronunciation between the letters in the two languages (made harder by the existence of the double “r”, which required one to roll their “r”s in a way that doesn’t exist in English, and can be rather challenging for gringos), and the fact that that “to be” in English is represented by “ser” or “estar” in Spanish depending on context.
This question is also amusing to me because the example that every Honduran gives to support this is the various words they have for “pig” (“cerdo”[the actual word], “chancho”, “marrano”, “curro”, “coche”, “Puerco”, “cochino”… ect). Im not sure when they all got together as a country to decide that this would be the example they used (maybe it is part of their classes on dealing with gringos [that assume exist and are mandatory] in which they also cover yelling “gringo” at us, staring unabashedly at us on buses, cat calling American women, and laughing uncontrollably at how it sounds when we speak English), considering it is actually an example of a word that we have various ways of saying as well (pig, hog, swine,…ect). As I pondered this question, I began to consider what other words they had a plethora of and came up with “child” (“niño”, “guiro”, “cipote”, “ichoco”, “esquincle” [from Mexico], “bicho” [Salvadoran word, mostly used in border areas], “sambo”, “chino”, “mico”, chinguin”, “mico” …). This got me to thinking about which things different societies develop extensive ways of saying. The Eskimos for example (supposedly) have dozens of ways to say snow, whereas we in America have lots of ways to say money, and Central Americans have a ton of ways of referring to children. I feel like maybe societies just come up with lots of ways to describe things that they have a lot of. Eskimos are surrounded by snow 12 months of the year (well until global warming really starts to kick in), America has long been one of the richest countries in the world (and Americans are often times a bit money obsessed), and Honduras has one of the highest birth rates in the hemisphere, and thus there are a lot of children running around (41% of the population is under the age of 14 [according to the information PC Honduras gave us during training]).
Having developed this air tight theory, I began pondering other linguistic oddities. This led me to realize, that often times here in Honduras there also exists the reverse phenomenon, in that many things are referred to by the same word (and this can actually prove to be more of an inconvenience). The most blatant examples being “picar” (which, in Honduran vernacular, refers to: “sting”, “bite” [from an insect/ snake], “itch”, “to be spicy”, “the pang of hunger” and a few more sensations I cannot remember at the moment) and “bomba” (which refers to: “fumigator”, “the mechanism in the back of a toilet”, “a bomb”, “a homemade gun”, “a plunger”, and any sort of “pump”, including an air pump for a bicycle tire, soccer ball, or car tire, and a water pump for irrigation). I feel like this linguistic shortcoming is a result of the lack of education in this country. People who are not provided with a sufficiently ample vocabulary, with which to describe all of the sensations and objects that they encounter, will invariably be forced to make do with the vernacular that they have at their disposal. Well, I guess with that thought I shall wrap up this long and rambling entry.
