Mcwhorter pgs 44-87

    This chapter in Mcwhorter's book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, describes the possible relation between Celtic and English. How although there are hardly any words borrowed from Celtic into English, there are certain grammatical similarities. He then goes on to point out that English has changed throughout the centuries, not only through new words, but through ways of speaking and what has become acceptable. That what was once considered déclassé is now normal. Mcwhorter then brings up the redundancy of "do" and the fact that English is the only European language that does not designate gender to its nouns and does not refer back to oneself with many verbs, such as “I go” in English compared to “I go myself” in the Spanish translation.  He goes on to explain the differences between Old English and Modern English. English has dropped many traits that other languages have not and Mcwhorter asserts that someone had to have done this to English, “loosened all of its screws.” The quote, “In Africa, colonial languages, like English, French, and Portuguese, have certainly poured words into small local languages-but they have had almost no effect on these languages’ grammars” (pg 83) relates back to the video about the linguists that were trying to preserve those small local languages, because there is little to no relation between them and the national language of the area they exist in. Although someone may learn both languages, they are completely separate and will remain so, unless someone came in and intentionally meshed them together, like McWhorter is proposing was done to English. The quote I am unclear on is where Mcwhorter says that “Quite a few European languages have a word that refers to people in a generic sense. Spanish’s Se habla Español…in comparison, English settles for making poor you do an awful lot of work” (77). In English when I am referring to the generic person, I can use you or one. The author neglects using one completely, why? He is excruciatingly detailed on everything else, but this.

The Linguists

        In the video by "The Linguists", Greg and David, a recurrent theme was that with so many languages in the world, why should one limit themselves to exclusively studying the most popular ones, when the lesser known languages may one day become extinct? Within language lies not simply a mass of words, grammar and syntax, but also the breath of a culture and the values that culture carries with it and understands. Language is more than just a means of communication; it is a connection through mind, body and spirit. That is something that should be preserved, no matter how many or how few speak it. In fact, out of the more than 7000 languages that exist in the world, 85% are spoken by small groups of people. That means once those populations die out, if the language is not documented, it will die with them. One of the languages I found really demonstrated the value of studying an endangered language was the Kallawaya language of Bolivian fathers and sons. It is a language centered on holistic medicine and one that even many native-born Bolivians didn’t think existed. It has been around for centuries in the Andes Mountains, spoken by less than 100 speakers and is used to help alleviate sickness. Such a language could be immeasurably valuable to modern medicine if it is documented and learned. Another reason depicted in the movie was of the tribal languages of India. Parents from secluded tribes in rural parts of India send their offspring to boarding schools where the children learn in Hindi and much of their culture and language is lost. Although it may be financially beneficial to be fluent in a country's lingua franca, it is equally important not to forget oneself and where one comes from. These linguists and their video help to spread this concept, and awareness that we can and should help save these endangered languages.  

The word "salsa" is derived from the word for sauce. The use of the term as a form of dance happened in 1975 because, like the sauce it is named after, it is a mixture of ingredients- Latin jazz and rock. The etymology is coinage and borrowing because people the world over dance and sway to the rhythms of salsa music, there is no other term in any language to describe it. I chose this word because I am a "salsera" in training, in other words, someone who loves and practices dancing salsa. The movement of two bodies dancing salsa as one is an extremely intimate experience to watch and partake in. It is not an easy dance to master, but is well worth taking the time to learn it. I find that a love for any activity, especially something that has become as universal as salsa, can help people forge connections with others they would never encounter.

English: The New Tower of Babel?

Many native-English speakers have seen, and laughed at terrible, often hilarious mistranslations, particularly from Chinese to English. There are whole websites devoted to making a mockery of this pseudo-language! At times, it seems as though they were poorly translated on purpose-no one hired to do these translations has ever heard of spellcheck?! According to the article, From English to Chinglish: The Globalization of Languages, in part due to the 2008 China Olympics, the government began cracking down on such infamous translating errors such as, "if you are stolen, call the police”. What I found interesting was that this crack-down didn’t occur sooner. The Asian culture as a whole is oft noted for their pride in academic success, so how did all these grammatical errors slip by? The answer may be as simple as that there are so many non-native English speakers using English as their "lingua franca", that what has long been considered "proper" grammar may soon become obsolete. It is predicted by 2020, people whose first language is English, will only account for 15% of the population that learn English. Even now, the majority of conversations in English are by non-native speakers using it as a means to bridge the language barrier between foreign lands. As it is pointed out in Wired Magazine, this influx of non-native speakers communicating in English, many changes in syntax and grammar will become the norm. Languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Mandarin do not use pronouns. The practice of not making certain nouns plural will be disregarded. If they eliminate them in their native tongue, why not eliminate them in their bastardized English? It only makes sense to make English more efficient for its growing supporters. Interestingly, it was because of this same linguistic influence that Western Europe split into "realms" of language-Romance and Germanic languages. English was in fact, a fusion of both! Ergo, it is not surprising that this trend of English evolving to include other languages is lending to the depletion of lesser known, indigenous languages. To that end, there are both pros and cons; if more people can communicate across borders, certain prejudices will die away and ignorance will (hopefully) diminish. An example listed in From Chinglish to English is in India, where although Hindi is considered to be the country's official language, only 1/6th of the population is native-Hindi speakers. In this case, English is used as an "ethnically neutral choice" to avoid cultural preferences. However, despite the major pluses for this new lingua franca, there are negatives to be seen. With more and more of the populace speaking the same language, albeit with different dialects, the cultures that make the world so diverse will have less of a place in society. Certain cultural practices, and possibly certain cultures themselves, will become as archaic as the languages that they are connected to. It is estimated that a language becomes extinct approximately every 2 weeks. This is due to some languages lacking a written form, and others because sometimes as little as 10 living people speak it, so when they die out, so does their native tongue. There is a silver lining to this though; there have been recent efforts to preserve these endangered languages. Many of these languages being indigenous, the people of which have a deep-rooted link to nature and what it has to offer, allow for us to study naturalistic points of view and research that modern science might otherwise fail to unearth.

My Language Story! :)

     I was born into a very culturally open-minded household. I grew up eating Korean, Italian, Spanish, French and Indian food, and listening to music in a plethora of languages. From the beginning, my mother would speak French to me and encourage my thirst for knowledge in languages and cultures. We would often spend summers in the French speaking parts of Canada and visit my grandmother in Cuban influenced Florida. My father was, like myself, born in California and introduced some Spanish to me. Due to my upbringing, I became fascinated with other languages and desired to be able to communicate in as many as possible. I wanted to be able to speak with EVERYONE and not limit my life experiences merely because I didn’t speak a language.  I would go through what my loved ones affectionately refer to as my "cultural phases". I'd get interested in a certain culture, learn the lingo or language, listen to the music, watch the movies and essentially immerse myself in it. Thus far I've learned thoroughly about Australia, Ireland (I even moved there for a semester!), China, Korea, India, Arabic/Turkish, Japan (yes I can draw anime ha-ha), Spanish (more Central and South American Spanish), France, Poland and I've touched on Italy. I went to a wealthy prep school on the Upper East Side for 9^th grade and hated it. Immediately after, I transferred to a high school in Ireland, never having even visited. My mother raised me to be a risk taker and I consider that experience to be one the most influential in my life because I learned that I can feel at home in any country, regardless of the cultural differences and in some ways, because of them! When I returned to the United States, I enrolled in a Chinese Dual-Language school where I learned all about Chinese culture and learned to speak Mandarin (though I am a bit out of practice). I had many Chinese friends with whom I would speak in “Chingrish”. When I started college at LaGuardia, I started having more Latino friends and dating an Ecuadorian. Through my friends and boyfriend I became completely immersed and enamored with the Latin culture and the music. It’s become so that I get anxious if I don’t get to dance a little Salsa or Merengue at least once a week. In daily life I tend to utilize "Spanglish", in part because the majority of my friends are from Latin America and also because I am working toward being able to speak with the fluidity of a native speaker. I plan on going to Guatemala this summer to teach English to impoverished children. That would be an unbelievable experience, to make a real difference in others’ lives and to aid myself in learning one of the romance languages in depth, for I believe the only way to truly learn a language and culture is by spending time living it! I also believe that the greatest sin is the ignorance of exposing o oneself to all the world has to offer; the cultures, the people, the places and the music!