my wife and i attend an inclusive church (which is really a misnomer as at the moment it's about 99.9% GLBT folk...i'd like to get some hetero folk in there at some point!) and last week, one member brought some friends with him. the friends weren't really totally sure where they were, and my wife was trying to explain to them what exactly an inclusive church is. the couple were from paraguay--and one of the couple didn't speak spanish, but rather only guarani (indigenous language to paraguay).
so when my wife came back over to our group of friends and told us that she had tried to explain that the majority of us are GBLT, we asked her how you say that in guarani. and she got embarrassed and said...there is no word "homosexual" in guarani. so, she used a word they would understand. puto. to my ears that word is awfully offensive (think "slut") but apparently it's a common word to refer to gay men in argentina (where we live now). so...i don't know. but there was no word for homosexual in their native language! and the best word to help them understand was what seems to me a slur! it was really strange.
and on a totally unrelated note (other than it also involving my wife), a few days ago, she was trying to respond to someone in this community (on a post about guarani). she asked me to look over her english grammar before she posted, and i found that she had started off with the word "firstable"--the way her ears had always heard and understood "first of all"!
now that's just cute :)