After the dreadful news from Sandy Hook Elementary School, it feels somewhat difficult to say Merry Christmas without a lump in the throat. However, life goes on and we owe it to them to move on with our lives. After all they are with Christ our savior now. The reason for the season.

As the final part of my Christmas series I would like to wish the world a “Merry CHRISTmas.”

The world is full of languages and one cannot be expected to know them all of course. However, with a little help of the internet I have managed to accumulate quite a few. It is estimated that there are between 6800 and 6900 languages

Did you know the number of speakers of English in China is larger than in the USA? Or that the population of Europe is about ¼ of the whole world, but Europeans speak only 234 languages? How about that in Papua New Guinea there are less than 5.5 million citizens and about 830 languages spoken by them. Isn’t that amazing!

Let me now wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Language                                Name

Arabic                                     Eid Milad Majeed
Armenian                                Shnorhavor Soorb Tsnund
Belgian Flemish                      Vrolijk Kerstfeest Wallon djoyeus Noyé
Bulgarian                                 ‘vesela ‘koleda
Bengali                                    Barodiner shubhechha janai
Chinese Mandarin                   Sheng Dan Kuai Le or 圣诞快乐
Cantonese                               Seng Dan Fai Lok or 聖誕快樂
Croatian                                  Sretan Božić
Czech                                     Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce
Danish                                     Glædelig Jul
Dutch                                       Prettige Kerstfeest
Estonian                                  Rõõmsaid Jõulupühi
Finnish                                    Hyvää Joulua
French                                     Joyeux Noël
Corsican                                  Bon Natale
German                                   Frohe Weihnacht
Greek                                       Kala Christougenna
Greenlandic                             Juullimi Ukiortaassamilu Pilluarit
Hawaiian                                 Mele Kalikimaka
Hungarian                               Kellemes karácsonyi ünnepeket
Hindi and Urdu                        Bade Din ki Mubarak
Icelandic                                 Gleðileg jól
Irish Gaelic                              Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Italian                                       Buon Natale
Japanese Hiragana                   めりーくりすます
Katakana                                 メリークリスマス
Korean                                    Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latvian                                    Priecïgus Ziemassvºtkus
Lithuanian                               LinksmųKalėdų
Macedonian                            Streken Bozhik
Malagasy                                 Tratra ny Noely
Maltese                                    Il-Milied it-Tajjeb
Maori                                        Meri Kirihimete
Nepali                                       Kreesmasko shubhkaamnaa
Norwegian                                Glædelig Jul
Polish                                       WesołychŚwiąt
Portuguese                              Feliz Natal
Romanian                                Crặciun Fericit
Russian                                    ‘S Rozhdestvom khristovym
Scottish Gaelic                        Nollaig Chridheil
Serbian                                    Srećan Božić
Slovakian                                Vesele Vianoce
Spanish                                    Feliz Navidad
Swedish                                  God Jul

Sorry to those who I have missed. My CHRISTmas message is the same.

Gavin