Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. To what family does your language belong? What sounds, words, or structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures?
Knowing the language’s history helps to understand certain influences that pop up throughout a language. I’d go further to say that knowing that culture’s history will help contextualize the language. For instance, the periods of English and French colonization in Senegalese history helps to deconstruct the English and French presence in Dakar Wolof.
“The Wolof spoken in Dakar, Senegal's capital, is particularly noted for its high level of French loans or derivative words and is readily distinguishable from the Wolof spoken in other parts of Senegal. The influence of English on the Wolof of the Gambia, a former English colony, has also been studied.” http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Wolof.html#ixzz5DP1qQBUL
Wolof belongs to the Niger-Congo language family. Before the 15th century, the Wolof people began documenting their language using the Arabic alphabet; however, during colonization, the Latin alphabet took precedence. In this way, many or actually most consonants in Wolof are pronounced as they are in English. Other phrases and words are borrowed from French like the time and number systems.
Comments