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Language journal 2

Posted by David Mowry on February 15, 2010 at 12:00am

This week has been very helpful with becoming reacquainted with the language. I've been doing mostly extensive listening activities by watching television shows and news reports in the language. While it's easy to get the gist of the television shows, working with my language partner revealed how much I will need to work to be able to understand the words and grammar used. Additionally, I read a news article in preparation for my language meeting. Although I understood the point of the article, it took a significant amount of time to translate all the words. At the end of difficult sentences, I had to step back and evaluate the sentence by putting it into English. This is both a shortcoming and a learning device, and I hope that, with more experience, I can comprehend a text in the language and not by reinterpreting it.

During my first language meeting of the week, my partner and I reviewed two news articles for the vocabulary and grammar. I needed some help with specific phrases (such as "durup dururken") whose dictionary definitions don't express the meaning of the phrase. He also helped to explain the constructions that turn verbs into adjectives and nouns, which is something I find very difficult. While I wouldn't necessarily be able to use these constructions in conversation, I can recognize them on paper and, with effort, in speech. For the second meeting, we had an hour-long conversation. This was the most helpful activity so far, because I was forced to convey/understand thoughts and ideas that I wouldn't come up with while framing a dialogue on my own. I beleive this was a good weekly strategy - while I can carry on a conversation and contribute to it, I need to study grammar, texts and audio in order to get a general sense of the language. I noticed that I can become familiar with one person's way of speaking, but often another person's use of the language might be incomprehensible. I plan to work on understanding a variety of types of speakers.

Finally, my vocabulary for the week has centered on variations of verbs, such as adding -en, -dik, -las etc. This is a mix between grammar and vocabulary, so in the coming weeks I will make an effort to formulate and study proper grammar lists. I did not attempt a writing exercize, but I will plan to do so in the coming weeks in order to produce an artifact. Finally, I believe intensive listening will help me acheive many of the goals mentioned above, and I will make use of the Schola materials to train myself to pick up specific usages.

Cultural Post: Iranian Cinema

Posted by Conal R Smith on February 11, 2010 at 11:00am

Why film? I took a class last semester about Latin American cinema and it really reinforced the idea in my mind that in a holistic sense, film is one of the most expressive and mass-distributed forms of art that embodies that a culture and its people. Here is a brief introduction into the Iranian film industry and how it began. Future posts will continue upon the timeline. Plus, who doesn't like movies?

The first Persian filmmaker was Mirza Ebrahim Khan Akkas Bashi, the official photographer of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, the Shah of Persia from 1896–1907. After a visit to Paris in July 1900, Akkas Bashi obtained a camera and filmed the Shah's visit to Europe upon the Shah's orders. He is said to have filmed the Shah’s private and religious ceremonies, but no copies of such films are available. Soon thereafter, Khan Baba Motazedi emerged as another pioneer in Iranian motion picture photography.

In 1904 Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi opened the first movie theater in Tehran.

In 1925, an Armenian-Iranian cinematographer, Ovanes Ohanian, decided to establish the first film school in Iran. Within five years he managed to run the first session of the school under the name of "Parvareshgahe Artistiye cinema" (The Cinema Artist Educational Center).

In 1932, Abdolhossein Sepanta made the first Iranian sound film, entitled Lor Girl. In 1935, Later, he directed movies such as Ferdowsi (the life story of the most celebrated epic poet of Iran), Shirin and Farhaad (a classic Iranian love story), and Black Eyes (the story of Nader Shah's invasion of India). In 1937, he directed Laili and Majnoon, an Eastern love story similar to the English story of Romeo and Juliet. These are seen as the most influential movies ever to be produced in Iranian film and that helped create the breakthrough into synchronized sound, sound technologically coupled with images and actions, opposed to earlier silent films. These are known as the great early classics.

More info can be found at:

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Cinema-of-Iran

Learning Journal 2

Posted by Tania Bukach on February 10, 2010 at 8:30pm

Creating my learning plan, working with it, the alphabet

I found creating my learning plan extremely difficult. I was lost until last class when Dr Scinicariello gave some specifics on what each week's learning should entail. The idea of learning tasks made me feel like I could get a lot more done. I made an ambitious plan, and set up all my resources and some artifact ideas. However, I found sticking to even the first week's goal hard. This week I realized maybe my plan is too ambitious. I am working hard to learn the alphabet, but I definitely can't identify or write all the characters yet. I hope in learning on other topics my familiarity will grow to the point where I know them all, even once that's no longer my focus.

Third week's work

Posted by Laura Major on February 10, 2010 at 2:00pm

I have finally met with my language learning partner, Wadia, who has already been a big help in my process of learning Farsi. This first week we learned simple greetings. We have decided that learning Farsi in Farsi script from a novice perspective is too difficult. We will start with learning the English pronunciation of the greetings and further throughout the semester we will incorporate the Farsi alphabet with pronunciation.

Cultural Response 1 - Challah Bread

Posted by Alper Daron on February 9, 2010 at 3:00am

Challah is a special type of bread eaten by the Jewish people all around the world especially in Sabbath dinners. The ingredients in a challah bread are typically white flour, eggs, water and sugar. What makes this bread special is its unique rope-like shape. Traditionally, in a typical Sabbath dinner, two whole challah breads (one for the dinner, and one for the Sabbath day) are kept covered during the Sabbath prayer inscribed for wine. Once the routine Sabbath prayer is over, the cover is taken off and the prayer for Challah is said.

Cultural post 1 - Kolbastı

Posted by David Mowry on February 4, 2010 at 5:38pm

Kolbastı is a dance originating from Trabzon, a city on the Black Sea coast. There are a few differing interpretations about the meaning of the term kolbastı - one is that the dance is supposed to resemble a bird trying to fly after its wing or leg has been broken or stepped on. This comes from kol (foreleg of an animal) and bastı (basmak - to step on, to weigh down + tı - 3rd person preterit). The second interpretation is that it is a song by those caught in a police raid, as in kol (patrol) and bastı (basmak - to raid or surprise/bastırmak - to suppress).The English wikipedia article takes the second viewpoint, citing the lyrics "They came, they caught us, they beat us" (in Turkish: 'Geldiler, bastilar, vurdular'). No matter what the interpretation is, this dance is remarkable. There aren't any set moves per se, but there's a set style of improvisation. It's often in 9/8 time, which makes it harder for those of us in the Western musical tradition to grasp, but it really doesn't matter if you just move your feet and kick a lot. This is, of course, a simplification, but not too far from the basics.Here's a video of the most popular new version of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLaDPjc61loAlthough the dance supposedly dates back to the 1930s, it has seen a revival (or maybe just an expansion outside of Trabzon) in youth culture. The dance is performed at weddings, festivals and on Turkish variety shows. In both formal and informal settings, people usually kneel in a circle and cycle in and out of the dance circle. Watch the videos, and remember the basics of any Turkish dancing - just keep snapping your fingers.University student collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkBYp9bkY0We might have to be friends on facebook to see this, but...http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=646904900232&subj=15805906

Culture Blog 1

Posted by Tania Bukach on February 4, 2010 at 2:30pm

Zoroastrianism, and how even houses feel the effects of religious persecution:

I had never heard about Zoroastrianism before reading a brief history of Iran. Apparently, it was the primary religion of Iran (or what was the Iranian empire at a certain point in time) until a shift to Islam occurred with the Arab invasion in 641. Nobody's really sure when Zoroaster lived, or when he wrote his book, Avesta (could be anywhere between 18th and 10th centuries BC), but it was a big influence to both Platonism and Judaism. Zoroaster is attributed some very big ideas, one of which is free will.

Zoroastrians began building fortified dwellings to defend themselves. However, once Muslim dominance was in full swing, all sorts of legal restrictions were put on remaining Zoroastrians, many of which affected their houses. For instance, a Zoroastrian's house couldn't be taller than a man's reach. This forced them to find other ways to fortify. Archaeological evidence shows that they contained hidden rooms for valuables to be hidden in, in case the family needed to run away. An exciting note: there's a legend/urban myth of sorts that all old Zoroastrian houses have hidden treasure, probably because when leaving in a hurry they buried valuables under the floor. Think about it - this is just like the weird myth surrounding old Victorian houses ("haunted" houses) in the States. Few people realize that exists because of an economic crisis in the Victorian era where many people abandoned their houses to seek better fortunes out West. I wonder if modern-day Iranians know where that particular legend comes from... Another result of the religious turmoil was that Zoroastrian houses didn't have windows (only peep-holes to watch for attack), and had covered courtyards to defend against roof-top invasion. Mary Boyce (an expert) gave some insight onto the significance of this: “It is ironic that Zoroastrians with their sophisticated theologies of light should have been forced to live in such shadowy, enclosed buildings.”

However, they found other ways of expressing their religion through their houses. Here is an interesting linguistic note:
there were two buildings in a typical Zoroastrian dwelling, the "pesgam-i mas" or "great house," and "pesgam-i vrok" or "small house." This is so interesting when we're thinking of language because the small house wasn't actually smaller in SIZE. It was smaller in importance. The great house (generally SMALLER) was dedicated to religious activity, and only the pure could enter it.

Source: http://www.iranchamber.com/religions/articles/zoroastrian_houses_yazd.php

Response 1

Posted by Nora Mann on February 4, 2010 at 2:17pm

Since I had previously seen Hebrew i didn't think I would have a difficult time jumping back in... I thought a few works would still be in my vocabulary and I right... however I still am struggling with pronunciation. I think I have officially decided that I do not think it is important to know how to write. Speaking is an essential.I have now begun trying different ways to remember the letters in the alphabet and I have also started to translate different prayers that I have known since I was young. I think this has been a good week of progress and I am slowly finding different way for me to remember words and ideas.Meeting with my language partner today was a very comforting feeling as well. She was very nice and is so positive, I think I will learn more than I first imagined.

Progress So Far?...

Posted by Conal R Smith on February 4, 2010 at 2:01pm

After reading numerous websites and the recommendations that they offered for first time users, I decided to head away from the technology sector. I looked on Blackboard for the resources that were posted and I figured I might as well dive right in. I chose W.H. Thackston "An Introduction to Persian" as well as John Mace's "Persian Grammar for Reference and Revision". Both books provided an immense amount of pertinent information for first time beginners for Persian. An important beginning to the analysis of Persian is that the structure of a sentence is in the form of SUBJECT-PREDICATE-VERB and that it is written from RIGHT to LEFT and in CURSIVE. From a more grammatical and analytical perspective, some basic information that is probably unknown to those unfamiliar with Persian is that the language itself lacks gender distinction. In other words, there is no distinction between masculine, feminine, or neuter. Furthermore, there are no indefinite or definite articles. Adding to that, the writing system is defined as ABJAD system which means that each symbol stands for a consonant and the reader/speaker must apply the appropriate vowel. For example in English, a sentence could be written like this : Thr s th dg. --> There is the dog. The next couple of weeks should be fun. Thus, when one becomes more accustomed and comfortable to the language, there are symbols/stresses/context in writing and speech that signify if there are many things or just a single thing (This lesson is for a future week). Another important note is that ALL nouns and adjectives are stressed on the final syllable when spoken. A week ago, I started with simple numbers and tried to get down the pronunciation and spelling. This wasn't as a difficult as I had thought before. Wait for it. Of course, Persian is written in a Perso-Arabic script that requires knowledge of the entire alphabet (just like any other language). I came into this knowing absolutely nothing of the language besides random facts but no previous educational/learning experience. In both Thackston and Mace's book, they start with the spelling and pronunciation of script. At the same time, I discovered that there are three varieties of the Arabic script in common use in Iran. First, naskh , which is the base type font and the typewrite but should not be taken as the model for handwriting. The second style, nasta'liq, is the basic cursive script and is the model for good handwriting. The third kind is a variant of the third called skekaste, where many orthographic breaks that are mandatory is naskh and nasta'liq are bridged, certain letters have wildly divergent forms, and shorthand is abound. I want to concentrate upon the second style, the nasta'liq. I also found that ALL letters have at least forms and at most four. The reason for that is since the language is written in cursive, depending upon where the character is in the word, the actual form of the character changes. Thus, there is the initial form, medial form, final word, and the alone form. Since there are 32 characters and 4 forms ( 32 times 4 ) = 128 different characters. That's a lot to remember and I'm just beginning to memorize them. Well, I think that is about what I learned this past week.

What I've done so far

Posted by Laura Major on February 4, 2010 at 12:57am

So far I have been trying to learn the Farsi alphabet. It's really difficult and annoying because I really don't know what the letters sound like so I've been searching websites after websites looking for pronunciation guides. I have practiced writing all the letters out on paper and have created flashcards with a basic pronunciation of the letter and how it is used to connect to other letters in a word. I've read a little bit on the phonetics yet still don't have a stable understanding. I will continue to learn the letters until I can recognize them distinctly in one word with them all attached together. I will also learn Farsi pronunciation so I can then learn vocabulary.

Cultural blog/News

Posted by Laura Major on February 4, 2010 at 12:40am

Today Iran launched a rat, two turtles, and worms on board a satellite into outer space. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated, "It is a great job that living organisms can be sent into space. We do experiments on them and they return to Earth." However, the U.S. and British Foreign Office did not react kindly to Iran's experiment. They worry that Iran's past history of testing long-range missiles will combine their satellite technology. The animals carried on the satellite were monitored according to Iranian space officials and that when they returned to Earth they were studied by scientists. This event speaks softly yet strongly about how each country's government feels towards the other in terms of threat.

Learning Journal

Posted by David Mowry on February 4, 2010 at 12:31am

In the first few weeks, I've experimented with various resources to assist with the language. My first activity was to use the global studio's language learning resources to figure out where my starting point should be. I understood the grammar in each of the lessons, but I decided it would be helpful to review a few of the concepts. I integrated this review into the last post I wrote with the new vocabulary. This exercise was helpful, but the sentences seemed somewhat stilted. Additionally, I recognized that I wouldn't think to form complex sentences like the ones in the last few chapters of the book. In order to fix this, I began to read news articles and listen to streaming video on CNNTurk. From the articles, I can pick up new words and see how sentences are formed. The videos help me be able to pick out the different words in the broadcast and recognize patterns of speech. I have continued by beginning a book and reading poems in Turkish.The news websites have been the most useful way to learn new vocabulary and gain a sense of common usage patterns. The poems and novel are also interesting, but I don't believe I'm quite at the point where I can fully appreciate stylistic distinctions. I plan to continually review the grammar when it comes up in new contexts, but I will focus on other aspects of language learning. I am excited to begin work with my language partner; I believe informal speaking and listening will help tremendously with my areas of focus.

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