Learning Journal #6 (105)

[Minyao Li]

The history of a language influence the grammar, the logic, the structure and the culture of the language in a lot of ways. For example, the French colonization of places in African has left a lot of people in African speaking French. But local Africans speaking different French than people in France because they incorporate local knowledge, social, geographical aspect into the language. When learning a language, it’s important to pay attention to variations within a language because of the colonial history. I once had a Spanish professor from Spain, but then when I had another Spanish professor from Argentina, I could not understand the Argentinian professor at all because of the different way of pronunciations. Argentinian style of Spanish is different from Spanish-Spanish possibly because of the colonial history. The logic and the structure of language can be different because of the history as well. The logic, structure and culture can be affected by the history of the language as well. Some words and use of words are unique in certain languages, but don’t exist in others, because of the different history of living in different places, interact with different things. Some language as a lot to do with the ocean, some are more familiar with the mountain, some has to do with tropical forest, etc. Language reflects on the life of the people, in another word, the history of the traditions and culture.