Language and Culture: Its What Brings Us Together

Language today is a very misleadingly complex subject. Many people do not tend to see how it can be complicated; rather they think it is just the way we communicate and not much more. However, as any anthropological reader knows, it goes far deeper than that. One of the many other aspects of language is that it causes people to be brought together. A lot of international freshman tended to congregate with people from their own country when they first arrived at the University of Michigan, partially because they felt more comfortable speaking their native tongue and felt a sense of similarity in their group. This can be seen in any place where diverse groups of people are thrown together. It provides a sense of home, a way to make them feel less awkward and bring their culture to a new place.

While language sometimes brings people together as above, another aspect is that it can actually be a barrier. When attempting to relocate to a foreign nation, if a traveler does not have a good grip on the respective language, than they can be immediately outcast as a tourist. Every local who starts speaking to them will recognize that this person is an outsider. The stores, malls, and even menus at fast food restaurants will all be incomprehensible and make traversing the country extremely difficult. Travelers such as this can fall prey to stereotypes which lead to a troubling experience if they happen across the wrong crowd.

Two books where these and many other aspects of language can be thoroughly explored are Guests of the Sheik:An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and Black Mecca:The African Muslims of Harlem by Zain Abdullah. Fernea comes to Iraq with her husband (Bob) on their honeymoon. Bob had lived there...

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...rted and people nodded. I was obviously slow-witted as well as lazy.” They take her silence during conversations not only as a fault in her ability to speak the language, but in her intellectual capability to follow their jokes and teasing. Their response to her food and her struggle to make good conversation is both cruel and unnecessary. It serves as a paradigm for the typical close-minded responses anyone with a language barrier encounters. Unfortunately, not everyone is as friendly and open as Mohammed.

On a related note, Abdullah has had his own brushes with those impatient to the linguistically challenged. He asserts that:

Black residents often read this reluctance or hesitance to respond, not to mention other avoidance strategies such as Africans averting their eyes when passing Blacks on the street, as not only rude but also demeaning. [Abdullah 2010:61]