Language and culture are inextricably intertwined – language does not exist by itself in a vacuum. Learning a language involves learning a culture as well, because by interacting with speakers of a certain language, one is interacting with members of a certain culture as well. For me, the culture of Iran, where my target language is primarily spoken, is familiar, if not well understood. By learning Persian, I hope to become more comfortable with the culture I grew up with.
Though I was raised by Iranian parents, my lack of proficiency in the Persian language prevented me from fully embracing and understanding my family’s culture. As a native English speaker, I was always much more comfortable with Western culture and preferred it to Iranian culture because I lacked the language skills to understand the culture I was raised in. Through my studies of French at school, I often felt that I would feel more comfortable living in France than Iran, despite my ethnicity and heritage. My French language skills gave me the power to understand a culture that I had no other connection to better than the one generations of my family had been immersed in.
It is possible to learn language without learning the culture, but outside the classroom, understanding culture is necessary to apply the language skills learned. Culture is what, in my experience, makes language three-dimensional. Conversely, it is impossible to learn about a region’s culture without learning at least some of its language. In describing a cultural phenomenon, it is necessary to use some words from the language spoken in that culture. For example, Iranians celebrate the Iranian New Year, or Norooz. Norooz cannot be effectively explained without using words in Persian to describe its customs and traditions, such as the haft sin table setting that contains seven items all starting with the letter ‘s’ to symbolize the new year. Something global can be described in multiple languages, but something specific to a certain culture requires the native language to explain it.
Through studying Persian, I have come to feel less culturally ignorant than before. The culture that was supposed to be my own, although it did not feel like it before, has become less foreign to me. Even though I am still learning the basics of my target language, I feel more connected to my relatives and the culture they are a part of. The power language has to connect people and facilitate communication is evident when examined through the lens of culture, and has personally enlightened me.
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