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- Men never braid their hair. It indicates that he is gay, which is a huge taboo in Tanzanian and other African cultures.
- When people of the same sex are talking, it is common for people to touch each other. But when people of the opposite sex are talking, there is very little physical contact.
- It is inappropriate for women to smoke in public. Women who smoke in public are often seen as prostitutes.
- Dating is becoming more common with younger people in more urban areas. Some elders still see dating as promiscuous.
- Girls usually are expected to wear skirts (at least knee-length) rather than pants, especially in rural areas.
- Girls are also expected to wear modest shirts with sleeves
- Men never wear shorts
- You are expected to visit neighbors periodically (ideally several times per week)
- Israelis are a very close, touchy, feely society - as in a close family
- If the Israeli is standing a little too close - invading yourprivate space - it's normal and accept it.
- The Israeli is ready for immediate action. You can witness this by how manyIsraelissit - leaning forward with legs spread apart - ready to stand at amoments notice.
- Israelis are a very passionate andexpressive breed. As such, if they raise their voices, this is how manyIsraelisnormally communicate with one another.
- Israelis want things today - Now!As they come from a young and traumatic society where war has been thenorm -trying to get the most out of today is the expected rule.
- Punctuality is relaxed. Always allow up to 15-20 minutes before thinking that yourparty islate.
- During a meeting the Israeli maytake telephone calls and allow others into his office or the meetingroom. Interruptionssuch as these are common in Israeli culture - do not take it as beingrude, impoliteor arrogant. This is a very informal society, where those in Israel areexpectedand able to do many tasks at the same time.
- Israelis are a very warm and friendly people. When they invite you totheir homeor out for dinner - they are not just being polite - they are displayingsincerefriendship. When they say "stop by at any time" - they truly mean it!
The first section was about Direct (low context) v Indirect (high context) methods of communication. At least in the area that I visited, Tanzanians tent to fit better into the Indirect method of communication. Actions seem to be very important. For instance, to say thank you isn't enough to show gratitude. When we visited, to show her gratitude, Mama Allen cooked dinner for all eight of us, than sang and danced with her family after we finished eating. And in Nyacusa (the local tribal language), there is this word ndaga, which is a greeting, goodbye, and if I remember correctly it is also used as a way to say thank you. Someone really has to know the culture to understand the word. I still don't know exactly what it means. But at the same time, words generally are taken literally rather than metaphorically, which would fall more under the Direct method.
The next section has to deal with how cultures view time. In Tanzania, they are definitely polychronic. Time is not important, at all. One of my favorite stories from my trip that really show came from when we visited a preaching point in the middle of the jungle. It was probably a 30 min walk from the main part of Isuba village to this little pavilion (shown below) in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.
It was early in the afternoon on Monday, so we just expected to meet with some church elders. Eventually we see a man go out into the clearing and start beating a drum (later it was explained that he was calling people to worship). And people dropped what they were doing to come to an impromptu worship service. It didn't matter that it was Monday and there was work to be done. It could be done later.
The next portion of the reading discussed individualist v collectivist cultures. Tanzania is very collectivist. What is good for the whole is more important than what is best for the individual. People are expected to reach out and help their friends and family in need. There is almost no focus on the individual. In the younger generations, there is more of a push for people to go to secondary school and if they are lucky enough to "University," but it is more to benefit the community rather than the individual.
I also really enjoyed the nonverbal communication section. I noticed while I was in Tanzania, there were certain things that were universal, especially smiles. I visited a pottery shop near Matema Beach, and kids swarmed around me. At one point, I had six kids hanging onto my two hands. I couldn't speak with them because they didn't even know Swahili, just Nyacusa. But they were talking amongst themselves, smiling, and laughing. My only method of communicating with them was through my own smile. It was one of my favorite days of my time there.
Another thing that I learned were the differences in various gestures or other nonverbal methods of communication. For instance, in Tanzania holding hands is only between friends, not between couples.When I visited Manow Secondary School, one of the guys grabbed my hand and held it as we walked around. It wasn't out of any romantic feelings, but feelings of friendship. And you would never point one finger at someone because it is considered rude.
I have worked with Geert Hofestede's cultural dimensions a lot in the business school. Last year in my International Accounting Issues class, I did my final project on Malaysia and how a company's financial statements are reflective of the country's cultural differences (it's not as boring as it sounds). From the diagram below, you can see that Iran has a higher power distance rating and uncertainty avoidance compared to the United States. With a higher uncertainty avoidance comes more laws and stricter rules. However, it is important to note that the survey was taken in 1972 and the shah was overthrown in 1979. The subsequent re-emergence into Islamic fundamentalism would probably bring the current levels of uncertainty avoidance and power distance higher than what is shown below.
When I was looking up Iranian culture I found this interesting list:
Iranian Business Etiquette (Do’s and Don’ts)
- DO try to get to know your Iranian business partner personally in your first
- meeting. Establishing trust and a good personal relationship is important in Iranian business culture.
- DO avoid topics of conversation like Iranian foreign policy and politics and also avoid criticising Islam as this can cause offense. Also avoid talking about the female relatives of your Iranian colleagues, and if they introduce the subject avoid asking too many personal questions.
- DO be aware that typical physical distance maintained when communicating in Iran is closer than in many western countries. Though you may not be comfortable with this close distance, it can be perceived as impolite if you back away.
- DO show respect towards your Iranian business associates by taking a sensitive approach to behaviour and cultural gestures. Avoid using the left hand when passing something, drinking alcohol or eating pork while in the presence of your Iranian colleagues.
- DON’T criticise your Iranian counterparts in front of other business colleagues, as this may cause a loss of face and harm their sense of honour.
- DON’T schedule business meetings during the holy month of Ramadan if at all possible as business activity tends to be reduced. Ramadan is a major Islamic tradition that includes fasting for an entire month. Although foreigners are not required to fast, it is considered impolite to eat or drink in front of others during this time.
- DON’T give the “thumbs up” sign while in Iran as this is considered to be an offensive gesture.
- DON’T display emotions or affectionate behavior to people of the opposite gender in public. This is very uncommon in Iran and can cause offense. In contrast people of the same gender often display affection in public and it is not rare to see two men holding hands
As far as the textbook readings go, I found it very interesting when Crystal was talking about a chain of dialects. It makes sense! But I have never thought about it. At one point in the chain, speakers of a dialect can understand the speakers of another dialect in areas close to them. However, as the people more farther apart in the chain, and eventually are at the two ends of the chain, they will not be able to understand each other. I don't know why I found this so fascinating! It made me think of the telephone game.
The other cultural difference I found most applicable to Hebrew culture is the collectivist one. They strive to work for the good of the group, striving to help others with the belief that by doing so they in turn will also be better off. This means that every single cultural difference mentioned in the packet has opposites between my culture and the one I am studying, because my culture is individualist. I would say that for me, my family has created a collectivist bubble to help each other. the majority of people I know are not like that though. They create their own path and work on their own to accomplish things.
I have not yet figured out what kind of nonverbal communication people who speak Hebrew use, but in the next few weeks I plan to try to notice what kind of nonverbal communication they use. This would probably be just as important to figure out as actually learning how to speak the language.
While I will admit that the readings in the book are becoming a bit more interesting, I am still not completely sold on it. As a result, this week I focused mainly on the packet that we were handed in class that talks about verbal communication across cultures and essentially, how every language differs in their expressions, social cues, etc. It was interesting to read about all of the differences in verbal communication especially because this is not something I have ever really experienced, or to be honest, ever really thought about.
I have only traveled outside the United States one time and that was to Australia. Let me give you a hint: I mainly went to Australia because they speak English and their country is the most like America than any place else. I am not good with change and adaptation if you could not tell J . So, although I spent around 5 months in Australia, I cannot really say that I experienced any communication barriers or differences in language expressions. There were a few things here and there, such as not tipping at restaurants because it is thought of as rude and I also was surprised at how slow-moving things seemed to be. Everyone was always relaxed and it was almost as if time really did not matter. Most of the students were on time for class, but if someone walked in late, it was never an issue. I distinctly remember one class, which was 50 minutes long, and a student walked in with only 10 minutes left. There were only 8 of us in the class so it was not as though her ‘fashionably late’ appearance went unnoticed, but in the end, the professor let her sign-in so she would get participation points and continued the rest of the lecture. If only that worked here at Richmond J
I have never been to Israel and I do not know much about their language expressions and social cues, but I can only imagine that they are probably very different than those found in the United States. Reading over the packet and reviewing the differences between indirect/high context cultures and direct/low context cultures, I would say that Israel is probably a highly contextual culture. Although I do not know for sure, from what I have studied thus far, it appears that the language and culture is more focused on leaving things unsaid and instead, letting the culture explain what is meant by a person’s actions, expressions, or use of words. In addition, from what I have studied, Hebrew words and word choice is extremely important. And also, high context cultures have a strong sense of history and tradition therefore it is logical to associate the Hebrew language with such a group. I learned about the history of the Hebrew language last week and although some changes have been made over time, the history of the Hebrew language is rich and much of their tribal and native societies still exist.
That being said, last week in class we also established that English is a direct/low context culture. I think that it is very obvious that our societies have come to place more emphasis on the idea of the ‘individual’ rather than the group. Likewise, because people leave independent lives, there is less of an innate understanding of others. We talk and we use words to try to convey what we are trying to say and that is the end of it. We take what is said at face value, rather than trying to figure out if there is a hidden message behind the words or words choice that people have used.
Because I do not know a lot about the Israeli culture and their specific social cues and expressions that are commonly found among the people who live there, it would definitely be in my best interest to learn more about this topic. Although I am not planning on traveling there anytime soon, it would be nice to eventually go there, and when that happens, I want to know as much about their culture and language expressions as I can. After all, gestures and expressions that we may find appropriate, they may frown upon and the last thing I want for myself is to be looked down upon and disrespected for not knowing the language.
What is truly intriguing though is that the spectrum that the author provides is incredibly accurate (at least when you apply stereotypes to the varying cultures). As soon as someone mentions an Arab or Turk, I think about how they will interact with me in a certain situation based on many of the qualities in prescribed in the reading.
Anyways, I think that this will definitely help me categorize how to handle a trip to Turkey and make sure that I do not flip someone off when I only meant to call their attention! Definitely a bad idea for an Armenian American.
I was really interested in reading the packet about the differences in language expression by social cues and expressions because it's not something I've had a lot of experience with. With the exception of traveling through Jordan for six weeks and stopping in Egypt and Jerusalem, the majority of my travel has been in countries in Western Europe, like the UK and France and Germany, which are very similar to English in how people interact socially. However, I think Turkish would be very different than English, from what I've heard. I've never been to Turkey, but we talked about it in class, and as an Muslim nation located near if not in the Middle East, Turkey seems like it would be closer to Mediterranean or Eastern social norms.
When we went over it in class, we said the Turkish would be an Indirect/High Context language, with more emphasis on implications and shared experiences forming one's context of understanding. English is the opposite, as a language of societies with more emphasis on individualism and saying things explicitly. I'd also expect Turkish and English to be opposite in their treatment of time. English is about efficiency and showing up on time, but from my experience, Mediterranean cultures tend to be more lackadaisical about deadlines and punctuality. The handout also explores the differences between Individualist and Collectivist, of which English is definitely individualist. People in America and also in much of Europe focus on independence and self-reliance and personal freedom. I don't know as much about Turkish, but I'd assume it's more collectivist than here, since it seems like more of a traditional society with emphasis on the family and group membership.
I'd also expect there to be some dramatic differences in nonverbal cues. And that would definitely be something to look into before traveling there.
The book explored dialects and how they relate to languages. Dialects don't seem to be as firmly engrained in America as in some other countries, but I think that's because we're so socially mobile and also a much much younger country than many others. I remember when I was in Britain I could start to tell where someone was from by their accent, though that's probably starting to break up now that people aren't living their whole lives where they grew up. American dialects are pretty limited to one basic accent, and then some variation in very distinct areas, like Boston or northern Midwest or deep South or Jersey. Actually I think there's more of a difference (at least on the East Coast) between rural and urban areas than between geographical regions.
From the reading that was assigned for this week, I noticed that the modern form of Turkish doesn't really apply to many of the families. Ataturk strode to be as Western as possible, ditching the Arabic script for the Latin one; however, he maintained a true Turkish spirit by ridding his new language of foreign words.
Connecting to a language that has its own branch (a daughter of the main base of the family tree), Armenian is a language that has barely changed whatsoever since its first introduction many, many centuries ago. The only division that I know of is when the modern Armenian (both Eastern and Western dialects) stemmed away from the old, liturgical Armenian that we still use today during mass.
Knowing this helps me learn Swahili because it helps me make connections with other languages that I have already studied. I obviously pretty fluent in English, so it is easy to connect the english word Computer and the Swahili word Computa or the English word car to the Swahili word gari. I can also make connections between Spanish and Swahili for instance the spanish word for table is mesa and the Swahili word is meza.
When the Ottoman Empire turned into The Republic of Turkey, the language was reformed to fit a modified version of the Latin alphabet. Furthermore, Ataturk, the leader of the revolution, employed the Turkish Language Association to change loan words from Persian and Arabic to Turkish words, presumably to bolster nationalism and exterminate other nationalistic movements and groups within the newly forming republic.
It is good to know where a language comes from because it can help you understand why certain categories of words are similar to Romance, Germanic, Persian or Arabic words. Also it is interesting to see how this language has been not just developed naturally, but almost engineered, especially during the reforms installed by the Turkish Language Association. You can tell when a word is borrowed and has been reformed easily; words that do not follow the rules of vowel harmony are probably former loan words that had been incorporated into Turkish previously. When you keep that in mind, it is easier to figure out in your mind how to pronounce certain words, and to realize that if you're pronouncing a word and it sounds a little weird and you're pretty sure you're doing the best you can, it's probably a foreign word. I haven't been able to figure this out, but I know that anahtar in Turkish means "key". I've never seen a Turkish word that has -h and -t together; I'm not sure if it's a foreign word, but that makes me believe that it is.
How the History of Hebrew Has Helped My Learning
Modern Hebrew took a very long time to become the language it is today. It went through many prosperous times, and many times when the language seemed to be dying out. The majority of Hebrew stems back from Biblical Hebrew. The Torah was written in this language, and it is for that reason that Jews consider it a "holy" language. It only consisted of about 8,000 words, and was also used as the spoken language of Palestine. This period lasted until the 3rd Century BCE. Hebrew was then only used for written documents, such as the Mishna, until 200 CE. That period is called the Mishnaic period. During that time, those who had been speaking Hebrew had begun using Aramaic instead. Then during the Renaissance Medieval Hebrew existed. The language was rekindled by the enlightened, and words were being borrowed from Greek, Spanish, Arabic, among others. These new words were being formed from ancient Hebrew constructions, using old roots, while others were formed from foreign languages. After this time, Hebrew was dying out once again. It wasn't until Eliezer Ben-Yehuda helped to revive Hebrew that it became a spoken language again. The revival of Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the first and only time a written language developed to become spoken. It was because of the ideological association of Zionism, along with the pursuit for a State of Israel that Hebrew was revived. Interestingly enough, Hebrew is the only language that became an official language of a country, and the majority of people in that country were first generation speakers. Another important fact about the development of modern Hebrew is that geographically, it was revived among Yiddish speaking people. Had the language been revived among Arabic speaking Jews, it would have become much more Semitic and very different typologically. After the institutionalization of Modern Hebrew among Israelites, it became the official language of the country in the 40's and is still used today.
I think that understanding this development is important to learning Hebrew. It is important to understand where a language came from, and why it is the language it is today. For instance, much of the idiomatic words in modern Hebrew came from Yiddish, a Germanic language that developed from the same sources as English. I find this kind of thing fascinating because today, most Israelis speak English as a second language. Israel today is also comprised of a somewhat large minority of Arabic speaking Arabs. I'm sure that this conflict of languages has had an effect on the language Hebrew is today. It is also interesting to know that the majority of the structuring of modern Hebrew was created by one man. Modern Hebrew did not develop over 2,000 years to what it is today, but was created by academics to consist of the quality they wanted in the language. That is why modern Hebrew is still very similar to how it was written in the bible over 2,000 years ago.
Farsi is the most widely spoken member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages. The development of the Farsi language can be divided into three periods: old, middle, and modern. Old Persian was written in cuneiform and had eight cases, each subjected to gender and number. Middle Persian had a much simpler grammar than Old Persian and it was usually written in an ambiguous script with multivalent letters, adopted from Aramaic. It did after the Arab conquest in the 7th century and most of the writings were lost during Islamic times even though much of the Middle Persian Literature was translated into Arabic. Modern Persian is even more simple than Middle Persian and it has absorbed a lot of Arabic vocabulary. Overall, it seems like once someone knows Farsi it would be easy to learn Arabic. There are four less letters in the Persian alphabet than the Arabic alphabet: gāf, že, če, and pe.
I found this really...umm...interesting video on the history of the Farsi language but it's not in English. However, the narrator's deep voice tells you that it is a very serious history. :) If anything, the video has interesting pictures and it is an extensive listening activity
The Hebrew language has always been an essential part of Judaism. Even when it was no longer a spoken language, it always remained in use as a tool for Jewish scholars, and for Jewish religious traditions (Britannica). This past weekend I attended the Havdallah service conducted by Hillel of Richmond. I observed that all of the members were able to sing along with the Hebrew service at least to some degree. This is evidence of how Hebrew, even as a language no longer spoken as a colloquial language, would remain at least in a small part through the traditions of Judaism. Jewish traditions in a sense kept alive the spark of the Hebrew language that was then rekindled to become Modern Hebrew, the "only colloquial speech based on a written language" (Britannica).
As a revived language, Hebrew borrows many modern terms from other languages. For instance, the Hebrew word for "professor" is basically the same as the English word, only pronounced with a more guttural accent. Those who created modern Hebrew were often influenced by their mother tongues as they formulated words for terms that were nonexistent in Biblical Hebrew. Understanding this can help in learning Hebrew because some words will have familiar sounds to me, and I will be able to see where the the influences of Romantic and Germanic languages separate Modern Hebrew from the ancient language.
When I first thought about what I was going to write for this journal entry, I did not think that I would have much to say. Honestly, at first, I did not really see why it would be beneficial to know about a language’s history. However, as I began researching the history of the Hebrew language, I found that it was actually very beneficial information that I was learning. Learning a language’s history essentially gives you a better idea of how that particular language evolved and most importantly how it has changed over time. Every minute of every day I am using the English language and yet, I never stop to think about where the words came from or how the entire concept of the English language and its structure came to be. When I think about it now, it is actually really interesting how languages develop and how each one is so different from one another, yet similar at the same time.
I found a lot of useful information while I was researching about the history of Hebrew and how it developed over time. For instance, I had no idea that there are two different dialects of Hebrew, Ashkenazi and Sephardic, Sephardic being the dialect that is spoken in Israel today. Also, the Hebrew alphabet has no vowels and most things written in the Hebrew in Israel are written without vowels. However, they do use features which are referred to as nikkudim. Nikkudim, which means points in English, were developed after Romans expelled the Jews from Israel. At that time, the rabbis believed that the Hebrew language needed help when it came to the pronunciation of words and sentences. As a result, they developed a system of dots and dashes which they referred to as nikkudim. These dots and dots are found either below, above or inside the particular letter of the alphabet and are used to indicate vowels.
Here is a table that illustrates some of these vowel points.
Also, while researching the history of the Hebrew language, I was surprised to find that very few English words come from Modern Hebrew vocabulary, but there are many words that come from the Hebrew of the Bible. For example, amen, hallelujah, and hosanna are common Biblical words used in English that actually come from Hebrew. In addition, because the Hebrew alphabet differs so greatly from the English alphabet, I would never have thought of the possibility of confusing words written in Hebrew for certain English words. However, as I have been learning more Hebrew vocabulary and familiarizing myself with the Hebrew alphabet, I have found that there are some Hebrew words, that although sound like a common English word, they actually have completely different meanings in Hebrew. For instance, in Hebrew, the word mi, which is pronounced like the English word “me” , actually means who. In addition, the Hebrew word hu, which is pronounced like the English word “who”, actually means he. And one more word that I found was the Hebrew word bageleh, which sounds like bagel, but actually means pretzel in Hebrew.
Overall, I would say that my research on the history of the Hebrew language was very successful. It is very safe to say that I learned a lot of new information, but that could also be because I have never known anything about the Hebrew language, or Israel for that matter, before taking this class J.
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I feel as though if a nation has adopted a language as its official language, then that language will never die. In this day and age, even languages like Armenian have been recorded and written down, allowing us to forever retain a copy of this language that stretches back thousands of years.
I wish that I could learn at least a little bit of each of the 6,000 languages in this world, but alas, there are not enough semesters left at UR for me to take self-directed study classes! :(
The first section disturbed me. I didn't realize how many languages were in the world, and I had no clue how many were dying. It is hard to believe that 5,000 languages out 6,000 languages in the world have less than 100,000 speakers and that 3,000 languages will die in the next century. That is a crazy statistic. I'd assume many of those languages are the old tribal languages of Africa, including Nyacusa, which is spoken in the area off Tanzania.
I also learned a lot from the following section. This discussed how languages are born. I learned how pidgin languages evolve into creole languages. This is what happened with Swahili. Apparently, Swahili was invented to help Indians trade with various African people; therefore, it started as a pidgin language. Eventually, it became more popular and more complex, and eventually transformed into a creole language, spoken by many people on the Eastern Coast of Africa. It is also the national language of Kenya, Tanzania, and possibly a few other countries.
I thought the section on how language began was very interesting, but it didn't give any clear answers. I realize that there may not be any answers, but I found that parts of this section were slightly over my head. For instance, I don't have the scientific knowledge to know what the difference between an Australopithecus and a Neanderthal are. It is very interesting, but I would need more knowledge on the development of humans to have a better understanding of this section.
How language changes also is pretty useful while learning a new language. Old English is obviously very different from New English, but language is constantly changing and words are being used in new ways. For instance, slang terms today are different than the slang terms that my parents and grandparents used. When my Dad was growing up the word "gay" meant happy, and today we use it to describe someone (especially a male) who is homosexual. I'm reminded of the song "Back When" by Tim McGraw (yes, I do enjoy my country music). The refrain puts it this way "Back when a hoe was a hoe/ Coke was a coke/ And crack's what you were doing/ When you were cracking jokes/ Back when a screw was a screw/ The wind was all that blew/ And when you said I'm down with that/ Well it meant you had the flu./ I miss back when." Even between generations language changes so much. In Swahili, for example, Hujambo was a common greeting, but now it is mainly used when addressing elders. Now, people just use jambo or vipi to greet a friend.
