Due by 5pm on Sunday, October 11: Discussion Post #6
Reflect on the history of your target language. To what language family does it belong? What sounds, words, and structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures? How do these considerations enhance your understanding of the target language and culture in terms of their associated historical origin, development, and contemporary realization? and pragmatic questions of usage? How do languages change over time? How do linguists track, predict, and extrapolate these changes?
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Uniquely, Korean is a language isolate without a particular language family. Yet, some people say that Korean belongs to the Altaic family. Even though Korean is considered a language isolate, it still has connections with other languages. Korean has loan words that come from English, Chinese, and Japanese. Japanese and Korean are similar in a way that both languages create their verbs by putting "to do" after nouns. Furthermore, Japanese and Korean have similar sentence structures since they both use SOV(Subject, Object, Verb). It's important to acknowledge Japan's annex of Korea in 1910 which lasted until 1945. I believe that a country's exposure to other languages and culture, help influence the country's language. Just as America helped Korea in the Korean War, Koreans began to borrow words in English. The influence of English in Korean culture is still visible today as popular culture in Korea such as K-pop and Korean TV contain lots of English. America is also starting to be influenced by Korean culture today as K-pop, K-dramas, and Mukbangs are prominent even within Western culture.
I thought it was fascinating how Korean was actually created through the experience of different languages that you stated: English, Chinese, and Japanese. Yet it was still considered language isolate and now other countries are being influenced by the Korean culture today.
Korean is in a complicated position as it is connected to the Altaic language family but was classified as an isolated language for many years. It is in the Koreanic subdivision of Altatic, mainly because of the contact Korea had with Manchuria, linguistics also claim that the Korean language has had a connection with Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic despite no genealogical ties.
Again these are all theories, however, Korean has many influences from Japanese and Chinese language. Originally, Korean was written via Chinese characters creating a Hanja method but it was far too complicated and few people knew how to use it. During the 10th to 14th century, many Chinese loanwords where used, and this Sino-Korean vocabulary is 60% of the current modern language. As someone who has also learned Mandarin, I see many instances where I used Chinese loanwords the grammar structure is identical so it makes learning both of the languages easier. However, because of the strong reliance on phonetics in Korean, they are very different and separate languages.
It is also important to note that because of the Japanese Occupation for many decades the Korean language almost became extinct. Because Koreans were not allowed to use Korean names or speak the Korean language, which resulted in the use of many Japanese loan words. Now after the Korean war and the U.S.A becoming a strong force in Korea, the language reflects that influence and has taken in American vocabulary. Languages are very malleable and have changed over time adapting to outside forces, since taking over and removing a language is a common practice in imperialism and colonization.
Recently, I was able to read a really neat article that discussed how the Philadelphia Deaf community in particular has a distinct "accent" that traces back to its French roots. This can especially be seen in how much the sign for "hospital" differs when a person from the Philadelphia Deaf community signs it as opposed to someone who uses standard ASL. The article explains how the first sign language teacher in the United States was a Frenchman, Laurent Clerc. Over time, the sign language used in America has evolved to American Sign Language. Scholars such as Woodward (1978) who have studied the roots of ASL have estimated that "60% of the ASL lexicon" is derived from LSF. However, prior to the emergence of early LSF (18th century) and ASL (19th century), Cistercian Sign Language was used by European monks. Thus, I would say that ASL has strong roots in French Sign Language (LSF), but also has traces to other sign languages.
We can view the connections between ASL and LSF by even looking at their alphabets:
(LSF) (ASL)
In the 4th century, religious figures such as Saint Augustine began to challenge societal views that outcasted Deaf people and the view of them being "possessed by demons" (Cagle, 2010). As St. Basil and St. Pachomius demanded that monks remain silent while in the monasteries, this eventually led to the monks developing a sign system that is now known as Cistercian Sign Language (sometimes abbreviated as CSL or referred to as one of the monastic sign languages). The CSL manual alphabet is stated to differ from the Spanish manual alphabet (Cagle, 2010).
In the NYT reading, we got to see how scholars were able to deduce that certain languages had ties to one another due to sharing an ancestral word. Similarly, one way that historical linguists are able to make the connections between the monastic sign languages, LSF, and ASL is due to the thorough documentation of monastic signs made by scholars between the 11th-15th centuries. Being able to record the language in its "original" or "standard" forms is crucial in the ability to detect derivations. In the case of the Philadelphia Deaf community, their signs for certain words are so drastically different from what has become standard ASL, but similar to FSL that the connections to the roots of ASL are evident. Additionally, this makes sense as it is stated that the Philadelphia Deaf community tends to "stay put". Therefore their style of signing is not commonly exposed to others in the Deaf community that are from different parts of the nation. With the increased amount of Deaf students attending "mainstream" schools and having interpreters that are not from the Philadelphia-area, the Philadelphia sign style is beginning to be taught less. In turn, this can cause the language to change and become more like standard ASL. This is part of the reason why there is some worry regarding the preservation of the "accent" of the Philadelphia Deaf community. In reflection of how Dr. Anthony mentions that grammar and sound changes also play a role in the grouping, I am curious what other sign languages would be grouped together with (or apart from) LSF and ASL if grammar and sign orientation were taken into consideration. In the reading, Drs. Anthony and Atkinson used statistical methods to track similarities between languages.
Learning about the regional differences in sign language really helped me see how the location that one is from can impact one's sign style. In some ways, it can differ so much that it can be difficult for others who sign to understand. While I have learned in the past weeks about how there are differences in how individuals choose to sign a word and even how a person's signed name reflects personality, I wouldn't have made the connection between accents and sign language roots. As I continue to learn more about Deaf history, I am learning about how the American Deaf community had scarce rights even two generations ago.
I found Dawn Sign's description of the history of American Sign Language to be very helpful. I also enjoyed reading the historical linguistics section of Cagle's exploration of the roots of ASL.
I think is was fascinating to know that sign language has a origin. I don't think I would have thought that it had french roots. I also thought it was cool how even though there are prevention to certain aspect such as monks not using sound, it could still create a new language. People will always find a way to communicate. I learned the alphabets to sign language in my elementary school but when I look at the diagram of ASL and LSF I noticed that my teacher taught me a mix of both sign languages. I think I would use the "P" in LSF and most of the other alphabets in ASL. This might be because my teacher had some french background but I thought it was cool to recognize that I was actually using a mix of two types.
Fascinating, Faith! Great post :)
Indonesian is a part of the Austronesian language family, which extends through the islands of Southeast Asia and the pacific ad includes Filipino, Malagasy, Javanese, and Maori (indigenous language of New Zealand). Bahasa Indonesia also has many borrowed aspects from Sanskrit, Arabic, Dutch, and English. Bahasa Indonesia (literally, the language, or Bahasa, of Indonesia) is very closely related to Bahasa Melayu. In fact, many articles I have found refer to the two languages synonymously, which is still a slight error. Bahasa Indonesia spread very far due to the travelers and traders though out history going through the Straits of Malacca. It was used as a court language as well, during the early empire of Sriwijaya (9th to 14th centuries). A period of Portuguese subjugation in the 14th century scattered the traditions, and added some of its own words to the mix, along with Christianity. For example, the Indonesian word for butter, mentega, comes from the Portuguese word manteiga. The word for table, meja, arises from the Portuguese word mesa. Some of these influences help me learn Bahasa Indonesia faster, since I have learned Latin languages and the cognates are much easier for me to remember than a brand new word. A subdivide of Bahasa Indonesia occurred from the trade and business use of the language gradually evolved a separate variant of the language called market Malay, or Bahasa Melayu Pasar.
The language also became linked with Islam and gained some Arabic influence through the spread of religion. The Dutch and English influence on the language arose from the European colonization period of the 17th century onwards. This makes many Indonesian words seem familiar to me, even if they are spelled slightly differently. For example, April is still April in Bahasa Indonesia. Also, the word article is artikel, and the word anchor is angker, and book is buku. Learning these cognates is especially helpful to me working through learning Indonesian, and I have been trying to find as many of these cognates as possible to expand my use of Bahasa Indonesia.
During World War II, Japanese invaders prohibited the use of the Dutch language, forcing Indonesian to be used even more widely than before, largely solidifying the use of Bahasa Indonesia for the eventual independent nation of Indonesia. Modern Indonesian administrations and governments use Bahasa Indonesia to conduct all of their business.
Unfortunately, I was not able to read one of the articles for this week, as the link appeared faulty. The other link about the very roots of languages arising in Anatolia seemed very interesting, and I wish that I understood linguistic science enough to critically examine Atkinson’s methods. To be entirely honest, I didn’t even understand most of the words in this article. While I love quantitative research, I think that the objections of so many other pieces of evidence relating to the roots of languages are quite valid and perhaps should be considered more than numbers based on cognates.