ARE LANGUAGES AND CULTURES PRACTICED BY ONLY A FEW PEOPLE WORTH PROTECTING? A language of any culture, whether big or small, is its soul. (Wenying Jiang, ND) “Language simultaneously reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it. In the broadest sense, it is also the symbolic representation of a people, since it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Brown (1994: 165) describes the two as follows: ‘A language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.’ In one word, culture …show more content…
Economically, protecting endangered languages and cultures can be challenging especially in 3rd world countries where are supposedly in abundance. Languages and cultures practiced by only a few people rick extinction. One of the best ways of protecting a language and culture is by having it on written records and teaching it in schools. This in itself may incur great expenses and if done seriously and less strategically. This project can largely depreciate a countries economy. Socially and politically, languages and cultures practiced by only a few people have unethical linguistic and cultural traditions that may contrast The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a …show more content…
For their boys to be considered men, they must endure a tormenting bloody whip match that will test their strength, self-control and bravery. The initiate picks a long stick and sharpens it in a way that will guarantee the most painful blow with every whip. Once he has his weapon … two youths are pitted against each other. His goal is to hit his opponent the hardest, and wince the least when he’s struck. Three blows are exchanged between each boy. The crowd decides who has shown the most courage through the ordeal, and he is the winner of the match.” It is clearly seen that endangered language and cultures are only practiced by a few people for various reasons stated above. The question still begged to be answered is: are such linguistic and cultural traditions worth protecting? Protecting languages and cultures only spoken by a few may pose a threat to the economy but, the opposite is true. In various places endangered cultures have been a tourist attraction for Individuals as well as organisations such as the Global Heritage Fund. Language and culture are an identity and create diversity: what is man without identity? What is the world without variety and diversity? Who are we without language and
For this summary I watched a video called Voices of the World: The Extinction of Language and Linguistic Diversity. The video starts off with how people believe that there are about 6, 000 languages. David Crystal talks about how with all these different languages half of them are endangered of becoming extinct. Each different language offers a different point of view of the world and culture. He said that if different languages are lost then “we lose the meaning what is it to be human.”
Language is truly part of our identity: our languages shape who we are. That is why we always have to be tolerant and comprehensive with others’ accents, typical phrases, or grammatical errors. Writers that really make an impact when referring to language and identity are Gloria Anzaldua and Amy Tan, with their readings “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and “Mother Tongue” respectively. These two writers, with completely different backgrounds, shared their views about how language and identity are intertwined.
Even nowadays, there still an issue that connected with language and related to cultures such as cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism is a behavior in one culture that should not be judged by another’s value system which basically is a belief of own culture practice with respect and understand the different of other culture. While ethnocentrism is the opposite of cultural relativism. It is the ideal that one’s own culture is the main standard and better than other cultures such if other’s culture practice is contrary to your cultural norm, that practice would be immediately wrong. In Language Myths provide many examples of this issue in many chapters which I will be discussing below.
In the last few decades, New Zealand has seen a remarkable shift in demographic, resulting in an increasingly diverse social, cultural and linguistic composition. Where before New Zealanders may have only rarely come into contact with people of other cultures, or people who spoke other languages, this is no longer the case. The global world we inhabit demands more of us; it is no longer an option to be culturally naïve, nor is it an option to be absolutely monolingual. This bibliography aims to identify a number of key texts concerning the field of teaching world languages, while also investigating the relationship between the teaching of world languages, culture, identity and how educators can work to consolidate all three in their practice and instruction.
As anthropologists seek to understand the culture that they are studying they must overcome the language barrier. Similar to the concept of culture, “people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their understanding of the world and themselves, and engage with on...
Language is a means of communication and it varies from one community to another. Everyone has a mother tongue which depended on the family’s upbringing. A second language can be learned along the way. There are also instances where a person is born in a community that speaks two languages and therefore, had to learn both languages. The quality of the languages learned will be affected by how well the community speaks both languages. This can later develop into a new form of language. The essay describes the frustration of the author who felt rejected by different groups for speaking a different form of language. Her essay aims to gain sympathy from readers by seeing the issue from her point of view. Anzaldua attempts to achieve this in her essay by raising issues on identity and discrimination. She wanted to highlight that language is not determined by a country’s physical borders.
As Ray Gwyn Smith once said, “Who is to say that robbing people of its language is less violent than war?” The image that is illuminated by culture is that a society cannot live without it. Culture fuels community and tradition.
Culture and language are intertwined and somewhat inseparable. Language determines how culture is delivered and passed down from generation to generation. The book suggest that language is the glue that holds self-perception, experiences, attitude and knowledge together (Appleby, 2011). This means that in order to fully grasp one’s culture you must first understand the
In order for us to communicate, we must speak a language. In order for us to identify to a culture, we must speak the language of the culture. Language is an essential tool in culture. Humans express themselves through writing and speaking, but we must understand what each other is saying to communicate properly. In American society, we must be aware of all the different cultures and their languages. The Spahr-Whorf Synopsis demonstrates how our particular language affects our perception. “Language not only expresses ideas but also shapes ideas about and perceptions of the world (Martin & Nakayama, 141.)” The Spahr-Whorf Synopsis describes a good relationship between culture and language
Barker, C and Galasiński, D. (2001). Culture and Language. In: Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis. A Dialogue on Language and Identity, London: SAGE Publications Inc. p3-4.
Did you know there is an International Mother Language Day? Language shapes our life through technology and culture. We have 7,000 different languages and atgb the rate we are losing them we could soon have less than 1,000 languages left. In “ A Day to Honor the Bond Between Humans and Language”, the author builds an argument that the bond between humanity and language as a human right should be celebrated. Mary Linn uses some languages are becoming extinct, multilingualism should be recognised ,and language is what makes us human to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of her argument.
Many countries have chosen to officially have more than one language as their language for many unique reasons. However, the main reason is that these countries want to recognize many smaller cultural groups within their larger country. However, not all citizens of a multilingual country are automatically able to speak multiple languages, and usually one language is used more in everyday situations than the other officially recognized language(s). For example, in Switzerland very few Swiss German speakers learn Romansh or Italian, but many Italian and Romansh speakers learn Swiss German. This is because Swiss German is the lingua franca of Switzerland, and Romansh, and Italian are languages used by minorities. (Grosjean, 1982). This mimics
Culture of a society represents the customary beliefs, values, and social constraints that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation. Culture includes all the common characteristics to the member of a particular group or society. It is through culture that a particular group define themselves, conforms to society’s shared values, and contributes to the society. Culture incorporates all the societal aspects which include language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, policies, tool, technologies, products, associations, organizations, and institutions.
Language is a very important tool that permits us to communicate with others, and also it helps us to the development of culture, because “What we say influences what we think, what we feel and what we believe” (Budani, n.d.), so it can be said that from language people are able to transmit their thoughts, ideologies and beliefs and Also thanks to its culture can be transmitted and learned over the years through idioms and expressions of a particular place. Language allows the interaction between people from different contexts and creates social relations that create a cultural mix as
...1). I don’t believe the present multiplicity of languages represent a danger for social cohesion and unity. I believe it should be celebrated. I believe a part of being a nation means climbing hurdles and getting through the challenges as they come. This is a part of a nation’s growth.