I'm having trouble uploading my videos from my imovie. I'm going to keep trying. I do have my 4 artifacts I'll send them to you via email. 

Dari%20cultural%20presentation%20.ppt   Here is my powerpoint presentation. =) I went on the same night as a lot of people, but the one student's presentation that I found fascinating was the student who presented on Russia and the Ukraine. It was very detailed and I couldn't follow all of it, but I was fascinated with his perspective as someone with ties on both sides. I wish that it hadn't been so late in the evening and there hadn't been so many presenters because I would have loved have been able to really let what he was saying sink in. I know so little about the situation in the Ukraine. Here is my works cited.  

I kept my journal entries as one running Word document and I have attached it below. =) Dari%20Journal%20.doc

In Afghanistan family is the most important social bond and a primary identity source for most people. Family and extended family and kinship ties hold higher value in Afghanistan than they do in many countries. While practices and views of family differ somewhat across Afghanistan due to ethnic differences. The defense of familial honor is important therefore honor-killings, vendettas and warring clans is common in Afghanistan, particularly in rural regions. Afghan families often intermarry parallel or cross-cousins. Families are rooted in male identity, that is, families are patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal. Though polygyny is allowed it is not commonly practiced. Most families marry within kinship groups or at least ethnic groups. It is rare for a couple to intermarry across racial, ethnic or religious divisions. Elders and parents are to be honored by parents. Families are usually large, by Western standards. This is even more impressive considering that Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate and the second highest under 5 years old child mortality rate. 

Time in Afghanistan is a more flexible concept. There are many reasons for this, but two of them have to do with religion. Muslims in Afghanistan pray five times a day. These times regulate days, when people rise in the morning and when they must pause from their work. While not everyone follows this standard many people do. Additionally, religious holidays change every year because they are based on the cycles of the moon as "read" by Islamic religious leaders. Thus planning and scheduling of time must be flexible inasmuch as one's meeting may conflict with this years feast or fast or prayers. Thus time is a shiftable concept. For example, an afternoon meeting or appointment is general...somewhere between 12-3, but not 1:30pm on the dot. While in cities where there is a lot of Western influence is more prevalent meeting times are more strictly adhered to as an expression of cultural diffusion and necessity, but in Afghanistan as a whole time is a more flexible concept. 

My cultural presentation is going to be about women's clothing in Afghanistan. I am going to talk about the differences between women's clothing in Kabul, the capital city and women's clothing in rural Afghanistan. Westernization, modernization and ethnic/religious clothing choices all play a role in the division between the way one dresses in the city and the way one dresses in the countryside. I will explain the differences and my learning goal will be to learn vocab words for the various articles of clothing that women wear. 

The majority of people in Afghanistan are Muslim. This however, was not always the case. It took hundreds of years for the majority of Afghans (who, it should be pointed out are a mixture of many people groups, many of whom have unique ethno-linguistic identities that are not Persian) to come to believe in Islam. Islam is inherently an Arab religion in the sense that the Muslim holy book, the Quran, is written in Arabic. The Bible or the Torah, which, though originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, when translated (well) maintains its validity as Christian or Hebrew scriptures. Muslims however, believe that unless the Quran is in Arabic it is not actually the word of god. Thus when Islam enters into a society there is an Islamization and to some extent an Arabization of the culture. Here are a few words that are examples of how people in Afghanistan who speak Dari use Arab words in their lives. 

Arab/Persian: 

initiating Hello- Salam (Arabic for "Peace (to you)") 

responsive Hello- Wa alekum salam (Arabic for "Peace be with you as well") 

title for a sultan meaning Refuge of the Universe- alempenah

one who carries favors- avatifber

incomparable or unequalled- bi-misil

immediately- derhal

prosperous or flourishing- feyziyab

god- allah 

prayer- salat

alms- zakhat

pilgrimage to Mecca- hajj

head scarf- hijab

There are more overlaps. Many of the overlaps come from religiously affiliated words and were carried over into Afghanistan throughout the centuries as conversion to Islam necessitated new vocabulary. 

Dari, like many languages, has tenses and pronouns to differentiate between the formal and the informal. They however, unlike Spanish, do not differentiate between genders, but often sentences can be completely gender neutral even in pronouns and the listener must rely on context. Greetings are a great example of how the formal and informal tenses work. 

Younger Speaker (YS)- Salam (Hello or peace) 

Older/More Reverenced Speaker (OS)- Wa' aleukum salam. (Responsive hello or and peace to you also) 

YS- Shuma chator astem? (How are you? <with respect/formal>) 

OS- Man khub astam. Tu chator asti? (I am well. How are you? <informal>) 

YS- Man khub astam. Takashore. (I am well, thank you.) 

It is important in Persian culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on "face" and honor that one respects the different societal positions that people hold due to status, age, or relation to the speaker. To disrespect this is far more offensive in a hierarchical society like that of Afghanistan than it would be in an egalitarian society like America. 

I did not want to focus much on the writing system because I felt that listening and having more oral communication skills would be a better initial foundation. I think about the way infants learn and see that they learn to speak long before they read and write. I know that is for a multitude of reasons, but I'd rather be able to understand a little of what is said than be able to read phonetically, but not be able to understand.

However, Angela and I did go over the alphabet just so that I'd have a sense of the sounds that I'd be learning. The biggest difference is the "kh" sound that is a back of the throat sound not found in English. It rises up from the back of the throat and arcs along the pallet as it comes out. It is used in many words.For example: "Man khub asti" is "I am well." There were a few other letters that sounded very similar, but Angela assured me that I could learn words and sounds and that over time I would start to hear the difference.

The Dari and Farsi alphabet or the Persian alphabet is the same. They share their letters with the Arabic alphabet with the addition of four letters پ , چ, ژ , and گ. The way the letters are written changes based on their location in the word: beginning, middle, end and stand-alone. There are 32 letters in the Persian alphabet. 

I want to learn Dari because my senior seminar paper was about midwifery and maternal mortality in Afghanistan. There are a lot of people who are leaving Afghanistan as immigrants and or refugees. I think there is a lot of use for this language and I think it sounds beautiful. In my learning plan I outlined more specifically what my goals were for learning this semester, but my general goal is to dip my toes into a very different language. I want to learn the sounds and accent. For me equally as important as vocabulary is a decent accent. I want to be able to hear Dari in my head the way I can hear Spanish or French or Italian, even though I don't speak much of the latter two. I want to have some basic vocabulary and a better understanding of the culture of Afghanistan by understanding various pieces of the language. 

Here are two resources that I found for learning Dari through listening =) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzhMsgYO-PE   

and 

http://jesusfilmmedia.org/video/1_53400-wl-0-0

and some simple phrases 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1vTGx_VNQ#aid=P-tyNz3BZzw

My language goals for Dari are the following: 

1. I want to listen to around 15 hours of Dari this semester. I will accomplish this by listening to music and or watching films. (I learned in Dr. Grove's ESL class that listening to a language even when you don't understand what is being said actually helps your acquisition.) 

2. I want to learn the following vocab/sentences: 

basic greetings 

how to talk about my family 

how to offer someone hospitality (food/drinks/etc) 

articles of clothing 

colors 

some basic religious words

3. I want to learn about Persian culture from Angela =) 

I think this will get me to a place where I have some foundation in Dari. I took this method of learning from my first year of learning Spanish and seeing what I actually could retain and understand. Spanish was easier than Dari, but I'm hoping that my learning will be aided by this method. =) 

I really enjoyed seeing what other people had been learning in class. I thought the one on krab-maga was very interesting and the insight into a very different culture was great. I also liked the one on Punjabi music was great because it allowed me to hear the language as well as experience the cultural context of the music. I thought the development and migration of the music through immigration and using newer beats to reach a younger generation and connect them to the older generation was interesting. =) I wish however that more people had used their target language in their presentation. 

I can say! =) 

Hello my name is Bethany

What is your name? 

How are you doing? 

I am well 

I am poorly 

You are beautiful

Your baby/son/daughter is beautiful (there are different verbs for each) 

Your (family member) is beautiful

I like the color of your skin too. 

How is your (fill in family member)

Thank you very much

God is my help

God is beautiful 

You are extremely kind-hearted

You are loved

I want.

I want it all for me

I don't want. 

I like you very much. 

Rice

elephant 

lizard

monkey

one

two

three

four

five

purple

yes

no 

help

very much

It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free

Our badness separated us from Him. Because of our badness we deserved death. Whoever believes in Jesus will not die but will instead get everlasting life. 

https://docs.google.com/a/richmond.edu/document/d/1TTQyTqWzJbWV8EhFD3lO8IaI-no72xw0z1FILHvpOtE/edit?userstoinvite=amared868@gmail.com,+jyotired@gmail.com&pli=1

Immersion is so important in learning a language. As a social learner language finds meaning for me in people. I won't always remember I've been studying, but if words and phrases are part of a social or volunteer experience then I retain them. I didn't learn Spanish in school for the most part but rather through short trips to Mexico and Guatemala and I placed into 300 level Spanish. This is not by some particular wonderfulness that I possess, but rather that immersion works better than classrooms. I have learned to understand French through hearing my father talk to pastors form Quebec on the phone occasionally. Even a little bit of immersion can do wonders. Curiosity and neccesity are a language learner's best-friend. 

In thinking about the The Times article about diagramming sentences it strikes me how often I diagram sentences for Kannada and how initially I would diagram sentences for Spanish, but never did so for English. I am a very visual learner and I am an artist so I love using images and color-coding to create a learning template. I think it is important so that languages don't become unspoken and then lost because no one understands sentence structure or understands how the language's grammar works. I think it can be a very useful tool for some people who are visual learners. =) 

My Weeks Activities posts and our cultural presentation are on Heather's blog because we've been learning together and doing the same work at the same time with the same tutor. I've copied the weeks activities here, but I have not copied our cultural presentation. 

Week 4 activities 

Heather and I: 

• met with Aarti and learned more structured sentences and conjugating certain useful verbs such as "I am" "she is", "they come."
• read a short autobiography of a woman from India involving cultural and life differences
• continued to practice our greetings and phrases outside of class time

Week 3 activities

Heather and I: 

• Met Aarti for 2 hours and discussed greetings (both with and without respect), practiced forming sentences with words we knew, and learned vocabulary relating to family.
• Practiced certain phrases by saying them to our friends and each other (for example - "Neevu channda adeeree" - "You are beautiful.") until they felt natural to say.
• Learned about differences between individualistic and communal cultures, and how such practices as greeting with warmth and initiating conversations would be different in India than in America.
• Finished the first section of our learning plan.

Identity can be very closely tied with language. I speak English and have an identity as an American citizen. Additionally, I speak quickly like a New Yorker. I throw in random Southern Italian slang that my immigrant family uses like "metz a metz" when I'm feeling so so or not so great. I started going to Latin America regularly to do humanitarian work alongside my pastor dad and counselor mom since I was in 7th grade. I grew to love Spanish and I'd use Spangalish with my English speaking friends, wear brightly colored bracelets, and bags from South America. My identity is tied to my language and my language to my identity in a chicken egg way. What comes first? Was I always the fast talking, sassy, New York-Italian-American type girl? or did that come from the language that I spoke? Did learning Spanish add to my identity or did if confirm a affinity for Latin American culture that was naturally there? Personally, I think that my language learning has impacted my identity or at least my superficial identity. I talk with my hands, like reggatone, want to live in Guatemala and Italy, enjoy spicy, jungle grown chiltepe peppers and salsa dance (poorly;) because of the culture of language that I was brought up in. However, I think that deeper identity is not effected by language. My love of people, my love of working with children, most importantly my love of Jesus and His good news for people, is not in anyway effected by language learning or changes in my superficial identity. I believe that if one has a higher identity, an overarching belonging that is stronger and more important than words or cultures then language acquisition may change pieces of the superficial identity but not the deeper person.  

Communicative competence is more than understanding how to say words and having a large vocabulary and correct grammar. It is understanding how one's words communicate an idea to one's intended audience. For example, in Spanish "adios" can be literally translated to "to God" as in commending someone to God, but to a Spanish speaker there is no sense of religion or God connected to these words though perhaps historically there was. Where as when one says "inshallah" in Arabic which is literally translated "if god wills it" but is used as "hopefully" or "maybe" or "I'm planning on this" the connotation of god willing and working in daily life is felt. This is the difference between communicative competence and just understanding words. It's understanding what words mean to their hearers. Another example is "namaste" which in Nepal is a very serious greeting  denoting that you see the "inner light" in someone whereas in India it is merely "hello". Thus communicative competence is important in something as small as greeting someone. =)