Tongue in Cheek
Monday, April 30, 2012
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.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
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.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
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 9th
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!
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