Talking to the daughter of one of my neighbours
today, I learned that Galician students not only have to take an
extra subject for their university entrance exams - Gallego/Galician
- but also suffer a dilution of their average mark because the exam
is the toughest of all. In other words, they're a victim of the local
language wars. She felt that the subject should be optional but the
local nationalists are surely not going to accept that, as it's easy
to predict the outcome. I guess the same thing goes on in Cataluña,
though the command of Catalan is much greater there, I suspect.
Talking of languages . . . My recorded guide of
the Burgos cathedral told me that Alfonso X ('The Wise') had written
the Cantigas de Santa María in a "Romance language".
In fact, this was Gallego and I, for one, can't understand why this
was obscured. No doubt there are a few conspiracy theories around.
The teaching of English has soared here in Spain
during the last few years, as people seek to improve their language
skills in pursuit of employment. Inevitably, there's been a degree of
fraud, with organisations falsely claiming links to Cambridge
University, for example. Or guaranteeing you'll achieve a certain
level in a hopelessly short period. In the latter case, they're
almost certainly relying on the fact most people drop out of the
course before it's finished. If not, the failure to achieve the
promised level can always be blamed on the pupil's performance.
A few new items from the menus of our Camino:
Oreja de cordero - Lamb's ear
Asadurillas de cordero - Lamb entrails (I
think)
Cigueño - Stork.
Heard on said Camino:-
Could I borrow some of your dental floss?
Exactly how does one borrow a bit of floss?
Finally . . . One of the hotels we stayed in on
our camino was part of the HiTech group. I thought of this when I
noticed that half of the flush-push on the top of the cistern was
missing.
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