On a recent trip to the beautiful Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey I was impressed to see the stall owners switch effortlessly from one language to another as they greeted customers from different countries. Of course it takes a lot of of practise to get to that level but learning to say ‘Hello’ is a good start.

The languages were chosen arbitrarily based on those known by PocketCultures and our friends, plus some others that came into our heads. They are grouped according to their language families. Obviously the main drawback of this list is that it only has 20 languages, so if yours isn’t there please tell us about it in the comments!

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This week India is celebrating Diwali, the festival of light. The festival is important for Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. At this time houses are decorated with candles, lamps and wall and door hangings.

Photo credit: Indianfestivals.info

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African countries have in the past missed out on growth opportunities through lack of integration in the world economy.

According to this article from BBC News however, this fact could help most of Africa to weather the current economic storm.

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Did you know that English belongs to the same family of languages as Persian (spoken in Iran and Afghanistan), and Urdu and Hindi (spoken in Pakistan and many parts of India)?

Human Language families from Wikipedia.

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Less than two weeks after the end of Oktoberfest 2008, the town of Munich in Germany is already counting down to the next one.

Oktoberfest is held every year in Bavaria and the festival attracts many visitors, who enjoy German beer and hearty German food during the celebrations.

For anyone else who wants to get in the mood early, this page from German Foods website has recipes for traditional German foods for the Oktoberfest.