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Culture%20Post%20%233.docx

This week I attended both Wednesday and Saturday classes, so I definitely feel like I have learned a lot this week. 

First of all, outside the class, I have started watching a few Korean dramas, mostly romance dramas, since I think the words and sentences used in there are easier to understand and don’t contain too much jargon. I learned a few common phrases. For example, “여보세요” is what people say when answering a call. I was wondering about the origin of this word, so I did a little digging. I found a great youtube video explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPL4V1eCGqo. This phrase means “Hello” but it is almost only used when you answer the phone. 여보세요 is originally the combination of 여기 and 보세요, which means “Look here.” or “Hey, look.” and even though it’s mostly used when you are answering the phone, 여보세요 or 여기 보세요 can also be used when you want to start talking to someone and show your frustration, like “Hey, look.”  

The youtube channel that posted this video has other similar video and I think this can be very helpful to learn some common phrases. Watching Korean dramas mostly have improved my knowledge and understanding of the Korean culture. The dramas I watched have settings in college and also working environment. Alcohol seems to be a very important part of all social life and networking in Korea. In the drama, coworkers would organize get-together after work and it’s usually at a beer place or Korean barbeque place where a lot of drinking is involved. Also, they would switch to a different place to start another round of drinking if the first round involves eating. When the characters in the drama get home, the first thing they do is to get a can of beer from the fridge and start drinking, especially the male characters. It seems like beer is a very important part of younger to middle-aged korean’s life, at least from what I see in the dramas. Also, hierarchy is clearly present in all the shows I have been watching, no matter what the setting is. In the college setting, students are not supposed to disobey professors or offer an opinion different from their professor’s because that would be considered disrespectful. The main character in the show Cheese in the Trap got an unfair grade because of the professor’s prejudice and ridiculous policy. But she gave up on arguing with the professor to get a better and fair grade. I’m currently in the process of trying to get the shows in Korean and English/Chinese subtitles so I can both understand and also see what the Korean characters are.

In this morning’s class, we did the 369 game in the class where we got to practice counting in Korean with both Korean and sino-Korean system. In addition, we did a new exercise I haven’t done before. We went over the song Arirang and then wrote down the song while sing/saying the lyrics. I’m actually surprised about how much I learned from this song. Even though I already kind of knew the lyrics, transcribing them down word by word from the phonetic sounds is actually quite different from reading the lyrics. I learned so much more about pronunciation in relation to word structures. I would like to continue doing similar exercises.

If I have received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean and its culture, I would like to study the difference in Korean usage between North and South Korea. North and South Korea has been divided since 1945 after World War II. During this period of separation, linguists and historians from both sides decided to create a dictionary of the Korean national language together. But the two regions still developed distinctive dialects and words usage overtime. For example, South Korean has more borrowed words from English compared to the North. South Korean call their language Hangul while in North Korean call it Joseon-gul. And there are many more differences in pronunciations. I would like to start from researching the existing differences and what would be the possible causes behind. It would also be useful to look into how linguists from both sides tried to keep the language and means consistent over the years. In class we discussed how geography and culture would shape a language, so North and South Korea offered perfect example on how a same language would develop differently under regional and cultural influences. 

If I’m going to do linguistics, I would do Korean and Korean culture. First, I will investigate the origin of Korean, such as who created the language, what language family it belongs to, whether there are other branches and so on. Hangul is the language used in Korean, created by King Sejong, the fourth emperor of Korea (1418-1450), it was published in October 1446.Many of the words in Korean come from Japanese and Chinese, because the languages of these countries originated from ancient China.

And then I'm going to look at the structure of Korean, this includes how vowels and consonants are combined, and how words are structured. In ancient times, the correct pronunciation of Hangul has 28 letters; Modern Korean has a total of 24 letters, 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters. The phonetic structure of Korean is simpler than that of indo-european. Each Korean character represents one syllable and each syllable has up to four phonemes. The structure of each character consists of up to five letters, which form the shape of a square character, so that it can be used together with Chinese characters. It is easy to learn the correct pronunciation of the alphabet, and its form is very consistent with the logic of phonetic structure, so it is called one of the easiest to learn and most scientific characters in the world.

Finally, I will study Korean grammar and culture, since the most important grammatical expression of Korean is in the suffix of words. I will classify the use of suffixes and use objects and situations. South Korean culture is obviously influenced by China, as early as the tang period, the Korean peninsula's ghost the special messenger to China to study Chinese culture and the strategy of governing the country, there are some things after copying to take back after "localization" absorption for their own culture, China's cultural influence to Woosong countries is very long, ghost also because of absorption of Chinese culture and strong unity on the Korean peninsula.

For these past two weeks, I focused on learning Korea’s government system through a drama series called Chief of Staff. Netflix is currently airing the drama’s second season as the first series received outstandingly positive reviews. I was one of the enthusiasts that loved the drama. I loved the drama because I can follow the plot very easily and I learn a lot. I learn difficult vocabulary words and the ways to apply them in day to day conversations.

The usage of hangul in the drama is more difficult than some of the words that I’ve studied in the past. This is because the story is told from a politically savvy Chief of Staff. The terms used in this drama relate to political policies and positions, different districts in Seoul, and socioeconomic class. I found myself reading the subtitles more when watching this drama compared to when I watched other Korean movies and drama. I had to pause the drama often to make sure that I understood the conversations. This is because I wanted to follow the plot as accurately as possible. I think that my ability to understand the vocabulary words will improve substantially with constant exposure to the material.

The week ending on November 16^th was full of highlights. The University of Richmond celebrated Asia Week, in which students displayed and took pride in their Asian dances, calligraphy, food, music, and etc. One of the highlights of Asia Week was the Festival of Lights, where different student organizations allowed students to participate in different activities. I was very proud that the university was taking its initial steps to recognizing and highlighting some of its more diverse facets.

When I was at the Festival of Lights, I visited Korean American Student Association’s booth. At this booth, they played trivia games with students and gave them prizes if they answered a certain number of questions correctly. I answered three answers correctly and was given my favorite instant ramen brand as a prize. Besides the prize, I was very proud that the Korean American Student Association was partaking in this event because I was once the Vice President of the club. When I was Vice President, the club did not have the resources to spread Asian culture to the extent that the student organizations did this week. This even made me think about how far we’ve come as a student body and how there’s still more work to be done.

This event was also an opportunity for me to meet like-minded Koreans that could speak hangul proficiently. Although I tried my best to speak hangul, I still felt awkward because I haven’t held a conversation in the language for over a week. This reminded me to constantly practice conversation. I will continue to practice with my peers during lunch and with my family through the phone or instant messaging. I hope to produce authentic artifacts that shows a substantial amount of conversation.

An essential part of Korean culture is food. I grew up eating Korean and American food, so the Korean food that I grew up eating will always feel familiar to me. About a year ago, my mom discovered a YouTuber called The Korean Englishman. His name is Josh, and he makes videos about Korean culture. He is fluent in Korean and English, so he is fully immersed in both cultures. His most popular videos highlight Korean food and him and his friends trying crazy Korean food challenges, such as fire noodles (spicy ramen) or a gigantic red bean ice dessert. He is extremely popular among Koreans and people of all cultures. I mentioned him to my friends from Yonsei, and they knew about him.

My favorite video of his features him and his friend Dan, who is also fluent in Korean. In this video, they eat at Kimbab Heaven, a restaurant near Korea University, as they discuss how they became fluent in Korean. They both studied at Korea University as exchange students. I like this video because they give a lot of good information for people who want to learn Korean. I appreciated them sharing their stories of when they first came to Korea and how they managed, even though they knew very little Korean.

I was surprised to learn that they only studied the Korean language for two years: one in London and one in Korea. However, when they returned to London, they studied Korean history, literature, etc. An important quote from this video that I still remember is, “In order to speak good Korean, you need to understand the culture.” I often mention this in my learning journals, having first learned this concept from this video. Even in my early Korean language studies, I have seen how Korean history has influenced how the language is written and spoken.

It was also interesting to learn that Korean food played a big role in their language abilities. This is because they learned about Korean culture through its food. They also became friends with native Korean speakers while eating Korean food. This helped them learn common expressions that are used every day.

I relate with what they were saying about learning a language via studying versus simply living with people who speak that language. I studied Spanish in the classroom for 8 years, but a week in Peru taught me more than a year in the classroom. Language immersion is one of the quickest ways to learn a language. Furthermore, languages are not meant to be learned in isolation. People learn languages in order to use them in the real world and communicate with people in a new way.

I watched this video for the first time about a year ago. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I understood more Korean watching it again now. I still rely on the subtitles, but I am able to pick out a few Korean words here and there that I understand.

Next semester, I will be studying abroad at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. If I get the chance, I definitely want to visit Kimbab Heaven!

https://youtu.be/ISj9zv62LrA

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZYKBm2JxBXMTsXpssH9IuAKBGyHZIB9I/view?usp=sharing

I am becoming much more familiar with reading Korean. Many of my Facebook friends post status updates in Korean, but I have never been able to read it before. Now, I am actually able to read what is happening in their lives! I also learned some Korean slang from their posts. I am more interested in learning everyday phrases that I will use often, rather than vocabulary from scholarly sources. However, I often read Korean words without knowing what they mean. There are a few times when I can read the Korean words and actually understand them. I am still happy with my progress, because I have the basis for learning more Korean vocabulary quickly and efficiently. I often think of learning a new language as opening a door that I could not before and seeing what lies behind. At this point in my Korean language learning process, I feel like the door is open just a bit and I am excited to see more of what’s inside.

Quizlet has proven to be very helpful in expanding my vocabulary. Last week, I was focusing on basic vocabulary words, such as “food,” “age,” “hobby,” and “family;” and basic conversational phrases, such as “excuse me,” “I’m sorry,” and “I will eat well.” It is interesting that I am finding it easier to hear the Korean word or phrase and give the English translation than vice versa. I suspect this is because there is something in between my memory of the Korean words and my ability to say them. Since I can understand Korean when it is being spoken to me, I know the words and what they mean. However, I have difficulty thinking of them in my head and saying them. Writing this reflection has made me realize that I am first becoming more comfortable with reading and listening. My writing and speaking skills will improve more as I progress.

I am still developing my ear for hearing sounds that are in Korean but not in English. During these past two weeks, Jenna was teaching me how to say “___ years old” in Korean. It was challenging for me to hear how some of the words were pronounced. This is especially due to the fact that many Korean words are technically said one way, but in reality, Korean speakers do not enunciate them. This is an important part of learning a language, because sometimes, native Korean speakers will not understand a foreigner who says something in Korean technically how it is supposed to be said. While this makes it confusing to remember how words are written versus how they are pronounced, the purpose is to make Korean words easier to say. When the Korean language was being created, it was done so that Korean speakers would not have to put in too much effort into saying the words.

I have achieved my goal of becoming more comfortable with reading and writing Korean letters. Moving forward, I want to learn more basic vocabulary words and phrases. I will continue to use Quizlet to commit these to memory. I will also take time to read my friends’ social media posts in Korean.

Last week, we went over the number systems in Korean, learning how to say and read all the numbers. This was very basic introductory level material, but I think there was value in reviewing it. So, there are two systems of counting numbers in Korean, and they are used for different purposes most of the time. I had no idea but telling the time is actually the one exception for this. Telling the time uses a mix of both systems. I was surprised. This whole time, I’ve been saying the hours and minutes without ever realizing that I was using both systems. We use the Sino-Korean system, which originates from China, for minutes, and we use the native Korean system for the hour. I found this to be very interesting. In general though, the Sino-Korean system is typically used for the names of the months, money, measurements, phone numbers, and more. The Korean system only goes up to 99 and is used for counting people and objects and just counting in general.

We also briefly went over a few common counters, which are nouns you use along with the thing you’re counting. For examples, in English, the “slices” noun in the phrase “two slices of bread” would be the counter. In Korean though, there are counters for almost everything. Depending on the thing we’re counting, the counter we use for it and also the number system used changes. The ones we went over during the lesson were very basic, so I went ahead and reviewed some of the more harder ones to remember. Some of the ones I have trouble remembering are 채, 두름, 단. 채 is used for counting buildings, 두름 is used for counting bundled objects, and 단 is also used for counting bundled objects. For the counters, 자루 (trees), 그루 (long objects), 켤레 (shoes/socks), 권 (books), I tend to unknowingly just use the basic counter for some reason. For instance, I would just say “연필 한 개” for one pencil instead of “연필 한 자루.” I will try to use the more appropriate counter when I have to count things.

Also, there are some numbers I just never really use in my daily life, and so I always forget. The numbers I have trouble remembering for the native Korean system are the numbers, 60, 70, 80, and 90. In Korean, they are 예순, 일흔, 여든, and 아흔. I think I normally just use the Sino-Korean equivalent. Another set of numbers I have a lot of trouble with is counting very large numbers like over 100,000. I don’t know why but the separation by 10,000 instead of 1,000 always throws me off and takes me a long time to process. So, 100,000 is 십만 which is 10,0000, and 1,000,000 is 백만, which is 100,0000. Then 10,000,000 is 천만, which is 1000,0000. The 100,000,000 is 억, which is 1,0000,0000. I hear these words very frequently because the Korean bills consist of 1000, 5000, 10000, 50000, which are roughly speaking, 1, 5, 10, 50 in dollars. Since the numbers become large very easily, when I’m back home I become lazy and just ask my mom how much the amount is. I should practice becoming more familiar with extremely large numbers.

If I were given a research grant to study Malaysia's language and culture, I would likely focus my efforts on studying either 1) the heavy dialects of Northwestern Malaysia on the border with Thailand or 2) how indigenous groups on Borneo are using their Malay and how this gets infused with native language and culture. Both of these dialects have come up in my conversations with Melissa, since the former is very difficult for a speaker of 'standard' or 'Kuala Lumpur' Bahasa Melayu to understand (think us listening to a very thick Scottish or Irish accent), and the latter speaks more akin to Indonesian and pronounces words as they are spelled ("boku") rather than with the standard colloquialisms of West Malaysia. In many senses these two distinct foci could not be more different, and if I had to choose I would likely pick the latter and conduct linguistic study in Borneo because it is still far less known and documented than the Malay-Thai one.

It would certainly be difficult to get started, and from the beginning I would make sure that I have a fairly strong handling of Bahasa Melayu before going, in the event that it could be used as a common language. The more organic form of language learning, or learning directly from native speakers and not going off of translation from a mutual language, would likely be too time consuming and difficult for a grant, so having Malay as a mutual language would be very beneficial. I would try to get a contact in the host community to help introduce me and the purpose of my study, as it would make very little sense to go in blind. During all of this, I would also be sure to have a solid grip of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the act of transcribing, as well as recording equipment to perhaps create a digital dictionary as well. 

In terms of what I would investigate, it would most likely focus on grasping concepts of time, place, directionality, etc. in the language in the abstract, as well as discovering which words are used to describe more day-to-day activities such as hunting and the like. I am thinking back to the Namibian Himbas and how this tribe saw colors differently, shedding light on the sheer difference in worldview that can occur. Perhaps living in the rainforest of Borneo could have some sort of sizable effect on worldview that has not yet been recorded. Beyond this larger component, it would be important to uncover the basic structure of the language and determine if it is Austronesian, how it uses lexical and grammatical categories, etc. This is of course a lot of work and I would need to pick one tribe and hone in on their language as well as gain acceptance in shadowing them (as this is a common problem for cultural anthropologists), but the tradeoff could be documenting an endangered language and contributing to the larger scale, worldwide knowledge of linguistic structure and efforts in language preservation as well. 

I think I would like to focus less on the technical side of Hebrew linguistics, since I am sure that has been done to death and by people better at linguistics than me, but rather I would focus on the more cultural and political side of why, and eventually exactly how, Hebrew was simplified from a very arcane ancient semitic language to the extremely simplified and straightforward version taught today. Some of the examples that I could research from things I have already learned in Hebrew would be easily compared to a more complicated language in the same language family, such as MSA. MSA has a total of 13 different verb conjugations, while Hebrew only has 4 (I think).

Broader grammar in Hebrew could also be an interesting area, as especially in recent years, the use of the internet and having large immigrant populations speak broken Hebrew has changed the acceptable and linguistically intelligible word order to become much more fluid. In religious texts, there is a very strict word order than can't be changed for any reason, but nowadays you can switch words around and people will understand without issue. 

Last week, we had a class about counting in Korean. The day before our lesson, in SDLC 105, Esme talked about it as well, so before the actual lesson, I had a quick review of the counting system. In class, Jenna talked more about the differences between Sino-Korean and Korean numbers in detail. Sino-Korean was derived from Chinese characters, so they have similar pronunciation to the counting system we are using now in China. Sino-Korean is used for dates, money, time, addresses, and also numbers over 100. On the other hand, Korean numbers are used for age, the minute in time, and counters for counting objects. There are words for multiples for tens in Korean numbers up to 90. Thus, the biggest number we can represent with Korean numbers is 99, and hence we have to use Sino-Korean for numbers greater than that. We also learned about the numbers in currency, which are usually large numbers such as one thousand and ten thousand in Korean. It is interesting to notice that while English has thousand, million, and billion, Korean and Chinese has thousand, ten thousand, and ten million. We did some practice on writing down the dates and times with different systems of counting.

This week, we went to the Pan-Asian Dinner at the dining hall together for our cultural outings. We explored various food from different countries in Asia, such as China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan. I was indeed surprised by the quality and variety of food provided at the dining hall that night. We couldn’t find many kinds of Korean food, but I did find some Korean/Japanese snacks, such as the 호두빵(hodu-gwaja) that I tried for the first time. I enjoyed the food at the dining hall that night and would like to experience this type of thing again. I’m glad that the International Center is trying to make the campus aware of other cultures on campus, and I hope they will keep doing it.

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How have you started writing in the target language? Do you prefer to type or write free hand? Have you started to see patterns emerge in the structures between words, clauses, and sentences? What is the relationship between simple and complex sentences? How does your knowledge of parts of speech, government, and agreement affect your ability to communicate in written contexts? Provide a sample of several short meaningful writing exercises from your target language.

I prefer to write free hand in Ge’ez because it is quite complicated on the keyboard that I use. It is probably because I haven’t gotten used to it. I also like to write free hand because I have developed my own unique handwriting that I quite like. 

Simple sentences in Ge’ez can be one word, for example: he ate is bel’a with stress on the ‘a’. More complex sentences have words with a couple of morphemes like as-tedalo-ku-ke, which alone means I got ready for you. The sentence structure for complete sentences in Ge’ez is generally similar to the English with the subject + verb + object formulation. Being able to identify the parts of speech plays a huge part in interpreting readings in Ge’ez for me at this stage of my understanding of the language because it is another clue to the context of the sentence and overall meaning in addition to the semantics of the words which I can gage with the lexical morphemes. 

Some examples from my recent homework assignment are:

Kahin qedese be’ilete Senbet. The priest did liturgy on Sunday.

Ikuy bi’isi qetele insisa. The evil man killed animals.

We’iton gebra hibst. They made bread,

Adding on to the process of making complete thoughts and sentences, we have begun learning how to make words plural. In Ge’ez plurality is expressed by adding an affix either at the beginning of the word or at the end. There is one predominantly used suffix which is adding the “at” sound at the end of the word. For example with the word qidus which can mean holy one, qidusat means holy people. Another common way to show plurality is by using the prefix “a”. For example, the word feleg which means river can be made plural by making the word aflag. The root of the word is also altered a bit. Another example of this is hager which means country is made plural as ahgur.

Here are more examples:

Dog: kelb → kelebat

Deacon: diyaqon→ diyaqonat

Father: ab → abew

Horse: feres → afras

Donkey: adg → a’idug

House: biet → abyat (this one looks like its using both the “a” preffix and the “at” suffix)

In Amharic, the majority of pluralities are created by adding the suffix “-och” sound as in the beginning consonant of the word church. 

House: biet → bietoch

Name: sim → simoch

Donkey: ahiya → ahiyawoch

In both Amharic and Ge’ez you add the possessive morpheme after the plurality one. Other uses for morphemes include specific subject pronoun indicators (written first) and case (written second). As we discussed in class, Amharic and Ge’ez are examples agglutinative languages but also use free morphemes to indicate some concepts or to emphasize them. Agglutinative language primarily use many attached morphemes. English is an example of a language that has less agglutination in comparison to other languages like German and Russian. Pronunciation wise I find that this makes it much harder to manage all the parts of the word in my mouth and often struggle especially in Amharic adding the suffixes while at the same time trying to distinguish which is the correct one to use. However, I can sometimes get away with not finishing the word properly and the message still gets across for my listener. That’s the good thing about speaking, it is composed through different means of communication like body language and facial expression that can help you send your message. However with writing, it definitely needs to be clear through spelling the idea that you are trying to convey.

One aspect of Ge’ez ‘culture’ is the hymnology of different seasons. For example, the season of the Flower which I previously discussed contains 5-6 days worth of hymns. Each is performed on a Sunday during the 5-6 week season (depending on how the Church calendar falls that year it could be 5 or 6 weeks). These hymns are called Mahiliet and each day’s hymns can last around 7 hours. At my church in Richmond they start at about 2 am and go until 6:30 am. They primarily use the staff, the sistrum, and the drums during worship. Each of the hymns is repeated slowly multiple times, then in a faster tone, and end with the most accelerated speed and intensity. Each hymn is very deeply enlaced with allegories, metaphors, and rhyme to name a few of literary devices. It also heavily references other ancient books and histories from the Bible and extra biblical sources. One must be able to understand those external sources to capture the essence of the hymns in interpretation and translation and even just comprehension.

   In order to hold these special services at a church a scholar of these hymns needs to be present. They hold the title of priest but also have an extra “degree” in these studies and their meanings. They are also able to produce new poetry called “qines” and the tunes for them based on the Church season or holiday because they are well learned in the mechanics of it. This is in addition to the written and recorded texts that are held in the book called “Zikre Qal”. These scholars are also teachers. There aren’t many of them in the United States but they are growing in number. It takes years to learn it so most students go back to Eritrea or Ethiopia to have a more concentrated learning experience abroad.  

As a believer, I try to learn some of them and participate when it comes to service. Some people just enjoy the tunes or even do their own personal prayers during this time. Yet some people don’t attend the service at all and come later on in the day. Following this service is the mass so most parishioners attend this service and during Mahiliet there is usually only clergy and choir members present. With more teachers coming to the United States, I hope this means that more people will get a chance to learn, both members of the clergy and parishioners so that they would at least be able to participate if not to teach themselves.

My study of Ge’ez has definitely been a huge aid for me in this aspiration, but I do understand that not everyone has the kind of support that I have in this venture. Support and resources (time and energy). It is important to focus on teaching the youth these hymns as they are the ones who have more time and energy to give.

This is a picture of the clergy during Mahiliet. 

The first time I started writing in my target language is when I was taking notes by write free hand. I wanted to type but the letters of Turkish are different from English, so I am not sure how to type Turkish, so until now I still need to copy and paste those letters from Wikipedia when I was typing Turkish. I also love to take notes by writing free hand because I can more easily memorize what I was writing in this way. I began to see some patterns of word structure because of the vowels and even some grammars related to words (because Turkish put grammar into the word). I believe we are still writing simple sentences, such as telling time, self-introduction and greetings, which don’t have complicated grammar or meaning. But we read some complex sentences before and I believe it is more like put complex context into the simple sentences, so basically complex sentences can be split into simple sentence and some small words/phrases. Because when I was learning English, we always tried to understand a complex sentence by splitting it into a simple version.

Right now, it is more like my language partner give me an example of how to express a sentence and then I followed it to write my own sentences. For example, she told how to write “my mom Fatma is 60 years old’ in Turkish which is “Benim annem Fatma, altmiş yaşinda.” And then I will write a sentence telling my father’s name and age in Turkish, which is “Benim babam Guoqing, elli yaşinda.”

How do languages go extinct? Respond to the readings, and reflect on what happens when a language dies? How can linguists help preserve a language? Can a ‘dead’ language ever be brought back to life? What efforts are currently underway to document linguistic diversity?

Languages are lost through a variety of different ways. One way spoken about in the article is when unique tribes get conglomerated and they end up having to use a common language or a dominant language. The dominant culture is the one that is carried on. With American Indian tribes this is a common trend as they were being pushed out by US expansion. It also reminds me of how in Nigeria and other multiethnic countries in diverse metropolitan areas using English as their mode of communication. Due to the diversity in languages and cultural backgrounds of people, it is impossible to retain the ethnic languages in academic and professional settings.  

Linguists document endangered languages by recording, writing, and curating it. They also take an ethnographic approach by building relationships and living amongst the people to learn and document the language. These approaches expand the focus of linguistics from internal (ie theoretical studies) to external (ie preservation efforts). It was interesting to see how the linguist in the video talked about the ownership of languages by the speakers as their intellectual property. In a lot of ways the Siletz speakers took that ownership into action by reviving their language through different methods such as implementing their language in academic settings, especially for the younger generations. 

Indeed a dead language can be brought back to life, but according to statistics 84 languages dominate in global media and are spoken by 80% of people, the other 6000 are spoken by 20%. These impending tragedies are impoverishing as David Harrison said and losing a language is like losing a whole way of thinking about the world. 

In this post, I would like to honor University of Richmond’s International Week that is highlighting East Asia this year! I am participating in the event by hosting a K-pop station that will share Korean pop culture with all those who participate.  In preparation for this event, I have been researching trivia and noting related vocabulary, and I have noticed some aspects of traditional Korean culture that are still prevalent in this modern industry.  

One of these cultural aspects relates to my overall topic of the elder culture and attitudes around the aging population in Korea. In each K-pop group there is a leader who usually is the oldest member and there is a label for the youngest member called the maknae or 막내. Each of the younger members are expected to follow their leader by respecting their decisions and valuing their opinions and input over others. In turn the leader is expected to look out for the other members while always having the interest of the group in mind when making decisions. Each group acts as a family which reflects the idea of valuing community in Korean society. I have talked about this in my previous cultural posts as the family being of the highest importance. I find it interesting how those values maintain a striking presence in such a modern pop culture sensation that is now sweeping across the world and sharing its uniqueness with other societies.

Another traditional cultural aspect that it’s still prevalent in modern day culture, and can be seen in the K-pop industry today, is the hard work that is required to maintain a high status of honor and pride among the K-pop groups. Most trainees go through a period of 7 to 9 years of dance and voice instruction that prepares them for their later career.  In many speeches by K-pop groups after their concerts, the members are always one to point out their own flaws and promise that they will work even harder to please their fans and create quality performances and products. This dedication is partially why the K-pop industry is so appealing to countries such as the US because of the seemingly perfect display of human creation. While artists in the United States also work hard, it is a critical part of Korean culture that one is always learning and always improving until, perhaps, they reach their elderly stage. 

It was a bit eye-opening for me to make these connections between the aspects of K-pop culture and traditional culture.  I have been following K-pop and learning about the functioning of the groups and the overall industry for several years now.  But I have not realized until recently how their values are so closely intertwined with the values of previous generations. 

Below I put a link to a video made about BTS, one of the most popular and successful boy K-pop groups world wide, that shows their struggles and highlights some of the down sides of the industry that holds such high standards.  I would just like to note that BTS has confronted a lot of these issues since their debut in 2013, yet they continue to work hard while learning more about how to take care of themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuQ_O9aMXMg  

I have not yet started writing in my target language outside of being able to write my name in Hebrew along with words that are common in services. As of right now I will say that if I have to write in Hebrew I prefer to write it free hand because I still have a bit of trouble recognizing the different characters but if I am using the transliteration then I prefer to type it. It looks strange to me when I see it written. The pattern of subject verb then object that English has applies to Hebrew also. I have done readings on sentence structure and how it differs in Biblical and Modern Hebrew. I wouldn’t say that I have be able to notice any patterns because I am still relatively illiterate in HHebrew,but I did learn that Hebrew both modern and biblical have a marker that indicates what is the indirect object in a sentence that we don’t have in English. I say the relationship between simple and complex sentences is that Hebrew allows for clauses in complex sentences which is essentially a simple sentence. Because there are nuances like terms of possession, singular or plural I would say that I am not able to effectively communicate in the written outside of simple sentences that revolve around shul or what I would like to eat.