The Italians were first!

Today during hafsakah (break) of Hebrew class I joined the Romance language circle to provide a change from the English-speaking circle I usually move in. The Romance Language circle consists of a young mother from Italy, a Seminary student from Italy, a seminary student from Poland, a man from Puerto Rico, and sometimes a young pacifist from Germany. Of course, as soon as I joined them, it became an English circle just for my benefit. I was discussing classical guitar, large families, and priests and pastors with the seminary student. He wanted to know if my dad wore a... ah, hmmm... (he points to his clerical collar and I supply the word). Suddenly the conversation moved into Italian as he discussed the exact meaning of the word 'collar' with the young mother. I could follow the gestures of her explanation to a certain extent, and suddenly I heard a word I recognized from high school French- colla (neck). I asked her about it and then we started discussing languages. She spoke Italian, and English, the Puerto Rican spoke Spanish and English, and the Polish seminarian spoke Polish, Italian, English, and I think possibly Russian.

Thus a mystery was solved! These people come from vastly different sections of the world and yet they converse? What is the common language? There isn't one: The Italians speak Italian, the Puerto Rican answers in Spanish and if I had mastered French I would have fit right in.

So, if one can learn one language from each family just think how many people you could communicate with! So after I finish my first Semitic language (Hebrew), and another Germanic language (Yiddish), I think I'll take up French again so that I have at least one Romance language. Then all I would need would be an African language and something from the Far East....

We talked a bit more about the language similarities between French and Italian and the Italian mother said, "They got it all from us. We were there first!" Take that, France! :-)