Half Mexican and half Finnish, my roommate is a cultural hybrid and proud. So, while many students' dorm rooms were probably stocked with the trite cheez-its box and a liter or two of pepsi and arnold palmer, our guests often enjoyed a smorgasbord of Finnish treats like karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pies), leipajuusto (squeaky cheese), pulla (sweet bread), suklat (chocolate), and my personal favorite, paarynamehua (pear juice). I'm sure it goes without saying that our room was an indisputable paradise.

It was only a few weeks into school that I decided it was well past due time I actually start learning Finnish. So, just like that, my roommate taught me the Finnish calendar, colors, directions, and basic colloquial language. I quickly began to assimilate the terms I'd learned, testing my knowledge in daily interactions with her. Surprisingly, we found my learning Finnish to be extraordinarily beneficial to us in almost every situation.

When avoiding unwanted confrontation, we'd ramble to each other, all of a sudden unable to speak in English. Or, most importantly, we'd use the language to point out good-looking guys in passing without being obvious.

I would say something along the lines of "Katso! Valkoinen paita oikealle..." fragmented Finnish that translates roughly to "Look! White shirt on the right," and she'd respond with a nod of approval or a disappointed shake of the head. We may not be perfect, but there's no way you can't say we're thorough.

Nonetheless, this was our unique roommate dynamic. Every month I sought to build my vocabulary, to become more eloquent suomeksi (in Finnish). But then, one day, I asked my roommate how the Fins say "I'm sorry"...

"We don't." She laughed.

"Huh?" I asked in confusion.

"Suomi, It's a culture where we have the word 'sorry' yet it's used so infrequently that we often are mistaken for not having it. We're a very calm, stoic culture and that's expressed in the fact that apologies are better understood through inflection or nonverbal expression. It's about sisu. That's just how it is."

I remember hearing this and getting lost in thought. I was taken aback by the implications. It's easy to assume, I'm sure, that every culture's language is a replica of the next, vocabularies that all describe distinctly similar subjects with distinctly different words. But how often do we consider the unique crafting of each language by its culture?

How often do we consider that each unique term making up its culture's language is indicative of a value, an esoteric experience, a past exchange? The Finnish term sisu is a cultural value indicative of perpetual strength and courage. Sisu is a value that defines the national culture, a crest that no one but a Fin can truly ever wear. Just as every culture wears its own character.

For instance, while the English language consists of approximately 35 synonyms for the verb 'look', Latin consisted of approximately 33 synonyms for the verb 'kill.'

As a student with six years of Latin courses under her belt, I can verify this fact's necessity in Roman story-telling. Consider, also, the Finnish word 'Kalsarikannit.' The word always sounded beautiful to me aloud, and I still remember when Noelle first taught it to me. But the direct translation of 'kalsarikannit' is essentially 'to drink alcohol alone at night in your underwear'.

Thus, I can assure you there is no one-word equivalent in the English language. In Japanese, the word 'Komorebi' describes 'the moment when sunshine filters through the leaves of a tree.' The Russian word 'pochemuchka' means 'a person who asks too many questions.'

The Rukwangali word 'Haunyaku' means 'to walk on your tip toes across warm sand' and the Tshiluba word 'ilunga' identifies 'a person who is able to forgive any abuse a first time, tolerate it a second time, but never a third time."

All these words are unique to their respective cultures, terms crafted with reason. It's not often that we take the time to appreciate the bridges between us, the cultural exchanges that allow us to see momentarily through the lens of another perspective and the shared themes that cultures harbor

I ask that you ponder the source of inexplicable similarites... I ask you that you take solace in them. There are so many words that transcend language: love/loved one, to cry, death, and, among every culture's respective religion, a term for prayer and sacrifice.

What crafts these absolutes of humanities? What warrants reiteration enough for a formal title. A name?

This is the beautiful anomaly that is cultural terminology.