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Cultural differences can be interesting: for example, the modern Euro-American (pronounced "honkey") standard of beauty is svelte, whereas males of various Polynesian cultures prefer their women a little on the hefty side.
... well, they like them a lot on the hefty side.
Such differences reflect on language: in English, "Woman" is a combination of primitive syllables that roughly meant "companion" and "man"; whereas in Hawaii, the word for "woman" is "wahine" - this isn't actually a word or any combination of words, simply onomatopoeia that approximates the sound King Kamehameha made when he tried to carry off his bride.
WA-hiiiiiii-neeeeeeee
Of course, cultural similarities can be even more interesting: when a ... uhm ... portly ... matron dressed in a flowered tent waddles by a mixed group of Pacific islanders and a group of cracker-white college boys, they both utter the same syllables, only the spelling's a little different.
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The islanders are saying "Muumuu" The haole are saying "Moo! Moo!" |
... and both are essentially correct, culturally speaking.
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