For the love of language

Paula do Prado, Scan of Adiafa/Diyafa Journal, 2011

One of the initial ideas for this project came from an interest in the way language contains evidence of cultural shifts whether through colonisation or popular culture.  Because of my family heritage I was interested in the use of Castellano in Uruguay and was surprised to learn that many of the Spanish words used today are derived from Classic Arabic language.    Throughout the process of developing work for the exhibition I have been making various lists of words. At the beginning I had focussed on common words between Arabic and Spanish.  More recently I began to list words associated with the experience of borders and their crossing: trespass, force, occupy, frontier, protection, reunion, absence and gratitude.