Blogs

My culture presentation is composed of a series of music videos. I wanted to focus on a relatable aspect of the culture. My first link is:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cHLSWmVnTE

This video shows what an ideal Punjab male citizen was thought to be. I know this song through my grandfather. It shows a more traditional Punjab. 

My second link is:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulcmRmFqoH0

This was to show a more modern and westernized view in music. Along with the western influences in synths and instruments I noticed that the women modern Punjabi music videos are often dressed as they are in English pop videos. I should say that they dress skimpily. I used these videos to arrive at the conclusion that the more modern the music and the culture gets it seems to have more and more western influence. 

The Punjabi writing system in India is Gurmukhi and in Pakistan Shahmukhi is the chosen writing style which mimics Arabic.

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region. For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language. Punjabi can be subdivided into two varieties, known as Eastern Punjabi and Western Punjabi.

There are an estimated 88 million native speakers of the Punjabi language, which makes it the 10th most widely spoken language in the world. According to the 2008 Census of Pakistan, there are 76,335,300 native Punjabi speakers in Pakistan and according to an Indian census, there are 29,102,477 Punjabi speakers in India.

The Punjabi language has many different dialects, spoken in the different sub-regions of greater Punjab. Since the Partition of Punjab in 1947, Punjabi spoken in the two countries has deviated from each other, with Indians relying more heavily on Sanskrit vocabulary through Hindi. Majha is the textbook dialect of Punjabi.

I had more information however my PowerPoint was deleted, I have tried to retrieve it however I think it is permanently deleted.

I found a children's book in Punjabi. Although my vocab is pretty limited I found myself sounding out most of the words in the book. I think that my lesson plan of learning how to write is realistic. I guess the sobering thing was that I had a tough time sounding most of the words out. I felt as though I would be further along than I am. 

I think putting more focus on the alphabet and the pronunciation will be better in the long run. As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, the beginning is the most important time in a language. If you don't get a solid foundation in the beginning it is incredibly hard to move to an advanced level without an immense amount of difficulty. I think the path that I am on will eventually reward me. I need to put a bit more emphasis on vocab and making sure I can understand what I am reading (pronunciation can only get you so far).

I have also started to listen to more Punjabi music. I feel like I am learning considerably faster. I have picked up most of my vocabulary this way due to time constraints with other classes.

Body language is a large component of Punjabi. Often times the body language goes along with rank in a family or society. Despite not having the cast system (Sikhs) there is still "respect" through communication. I have noticed that when speaking to an elder you are supposed to be completely open to conversation for instance if I am talking to my grandfather I am supposed to dedicate 100% of my attention. This can be achieved by facing him directly rather than having a closed off stance. Also eye contact with elders is key. If you fail to do this it is often taken as a lack of respect or even an insult depending on the level of the relationship.

I have also noticed that lately Punjabi has diverted from the usual body language. Most languages have common "do's" and "don'ts" and Punjabi is no exception. For the most part the body language is the same. Very few sources have hinted at other nuances.

Post your cultural presentation and what you have learned from this assignment.

I really enjoyed researching and presenting my cultural presentation for this week, as I focused on the "Snow White Syndrome" in India (colorism, or the preoccupation the media has with skin color).  I learned a few words related to colorism, including: 

beauty (सुन्दरता)

beautiful (खूबसूरत)

pale (gori)

dark (kala or kali)

face (चेहरा)

skin (चमडी)

It is a very interesting issue to examine in that the issue of colorism integrates history (colonialism and the caste system), contemporary economics (BBC reported that in India, skin lightening cosmetic products outsell Coca-Cola!), and gender stereotypes.  I also watched and listened to five "Fair and Lovely" Hindi commercials without subtitles, and interestingly, by using the context clues of the ad (each ad is a little story), I was able to understand most of the dialogue, although not the post-positions. The ads are very disheartening to watch because of the blatant colorism, but interesting to observe this aspect of Indian/Hindi culture.  The link is posted below. 

I have posted my cultural presentation below as well.SimrunBal_Colorism_CulturalPresentation.pptx

Link to "Fair and Lovely" Hindi commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a1iXt1yPsk):

When speaking with Aarti, we talked about how in Kannada, many of the common usage words such as "to be", or "house" have a particular Kannada feel, the deeper words, such as "freedom" have a root in the original Sankrit, which influenced the formation of the Kannada language. Indeed, after doing research, I found that the influences upon the grammar of Kannada were Sankri and Prakrit. Around the 14th-18th centuries, Hinduism had a large influence on Kannada language and literature, specifically in abstract, scientific, religious, and rhetorical words (i.e. deep words). Sanskrit itself is a Indo-European language, which is similar to old Persian and is thought to have been influenced by Baltic and Slavic languages."Sanskrit" literally does not refer to a language but a refined form of speaking, and knowledge of Sanskrit equated with higher social class and education. Those of higher castes used it; therefore, while Sanskrit was the upper class written language, Prakrit was the oral vernacular. Both of these had an influence on modern Kannada, specifically Prakrit, since Kannada is more of a spoken language than a written one.

In the past weeks we have discussed our language's histories and influences over the years. It has been extremely interesting to hear about the backgrounds and cultural influences on other groups languages and I can only imagine how this would support the challenge of piecing together vocabulary and grammar to be applicable in applying the language in its native country.

In the case of Hebrew, it is definitely helpful to understand the linguistic, cultural, and historic background of the state's formation, the Jewish people prior to statehood, and the birth of the Hebrew language some 2,000 plus years ago. Knowledge of these histories support a better understanding of certain words and their application in context in modern day.

Furthermore, understanding that Hebrew in its original form is such an ancient language, helps gauge the tremendous transformation that occurred when it was in transition to being applied as a modern language. So many sects of society that we take for granted just did not exist in biblical times. Thus, it is helpful to understand that many new words were introduced to the language since the time of the European Enlightenment, as well as many adopted words that were blended into modern Hebrew, especially from Arabic, English, German, and Yiddish.

Finally, while there are not many dialects within Hebrew, there is a lot of slang that pertains to the culture and histories of different ethnic groups and immigrants of different nations that have sustained despite an overarching Israeli identity. Knowing the history of the Jewish peoples and the ethnicities that make up the pool of Israeli citizens is helpful in understanding this blend of cultures and the uniqueness of those who have maintained certain traditions and linguistics within their family circles. 

It has been interesting to see how the opinion news on Ha'aretz has been increasing its focus on potential war with Iran. While the U.S. news channels and the republican presidential panels have focused a lot on the importance of this issue and on the prevention of nuclear power in Iran, I have found that the Israeli news sources have progressed to a stage beyond that of where American concern has plateaued. This has elevated for me the importance of my work in trying to become fluent in working with news sources in Hebrew and being able to make such comparisons.

I also reviewed a new tab that I noticed on Ha'aretz called "Captain Internet." This was an extremely neat section including games, frequently visited sites for certain interests, and gadgets. I thought this was especially fitting considering Israel is known for its hi-tech innovations and this could be a successful way of drawing consumers to their site.

I have continued reading the novel in Hebrew and am getting quite twisted in the plot. I expect to introduce this twist in my third artifact in a verbal summary both in Hebrew as well as an English translation. 

I have prepared my second artifact for next week and created a story using the new words that I have learned from previous weeks.

The reading, "Communicative Competence," offered some interesting and useful information. 

Dell Hymes created the term communicative competence which is, "that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts" (219). For the sake of brevity, I will specifically focus on communicative competence since I believe it was the helpful part of the article that could directly apply to my learning of Persian. The definition of communicative competence has been interpreted by many over time, and tends to include several subcategories: grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. 

• Grammatical competence refers to the competence used to learn the linguistic code of a language (219)
• Discourse competence refers to a wide range of competences that includes our ability to speak and our interaction with written text (220)
• Sociolinguistic competence indicates an understanding of the social context of a language
• Strategic competence refers to an individual's ability to recover from mistakes they make when speaking the language, often due to a lack of fluent knowledge

I found learning about the different forms of competencies to be very useful tool in measuring my learning of Persian. The different competencies allow me to specifically address areas of improvement. For example, since I do not know Persian extremely well, trying to build my strategic competency will be very useful in conversations with fluent speakers who will more readily realize my mistakes.  

The article also delved into a copious amount of information discussing the workings behind language and language learning. I never really took the time to understand the functions of language (i.e., the purpose behind each particular aspect of communication); however, reading about functions was interesting. It made me think of all the different ways we use language, and all of the different things we mean to convey without particularly taking notice of them. Learning about discourse analysis, which joins the form and function of a language, was also a means for me to better understand the logic and comprehension of a language. If I had to pick the greatest benefit from reading "Communicative Competence," it would be the knowledge I gained of learning how to example each particular logical aspect associated with language that could further apply to me further developing my ability to speak Farsi.

I find it interesting how Chapters 7 and 8 of H.D. Brown's Principles of Language Learning & Teaching incorporates many psychological factors into the topic. I find the comparison between Noam Chomsky and Dell Hymes's definitions of communicative competence to be very interesting. Hymes defines it as an aspect that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts. Chomsky describes it as a system of linguistic knowledge. Chomsky's definition, although correct, seems more general and vague. Hymes's use of the word interpret is a crucial aspect of communicative competence. Both Chomsky and Hymes rightfully describe competence; however, Chomsky focuses on the linguistic aspects and Hymes focuses on the communicative aspects.

I also enjoyed reading about Halliday's Seven Functions of Language. When I think about why language is used, I think about communicating and conveying information to others. In a sense, conveying information to other is "a way of behaving and making other behave". For example, when you want to start a conversation with someone, you speak or "behave" in a way to get their attention while at the same time making the other person respond accordingly. This article uses words, such as interpret and behave, that reminds me that communication is not the same as language. Communication involves interpreting other and responding in an appropriate manner.

Farsi, also known as the Persian language, is an Indo-Iranian and Indo-European language. It is spoken mostly in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Each of these countries speak have a different dialect even though it is all the same language. The word 'Farsi' is derived from the word "Parsi' because the language originated in the 'Parsi' (Fars). The language was widely spoken by the Persian Empire. The Persian Language has been influenced by and given influence to many other languages. While the language has been influenced by the Arabic language, it has influenced many aspects of the Hebrew language. Persian has even incorporated minor influences from French, Russian, and English into the languages.

Throughout the semester, I have learned many different words and phrases in Farsi:

Salaam      سلام

My Name is Dana      نام من دانا است

Juice      آبمیوه

Girl        دختر

Newspaper   روزنامه

Book کتاب

I am starting to become more familiar with the alphabet and letters are starting to become more recognizable; so, it is becoming easier to recognize words. Also, if you know the alphabet, you may not be familiar with a word but you still may be able to pronounce it. My goal is to continuing learning vocabulary words and phrases; however, my main priority is to master the main alphabet and half alphabet so that I can recognize words.

Goal: Identify a topic for your culture project and your learning goals for your topic.

For my cultural project, I would like to explore the influence of poverty on health in India.  This topic is very interesting to me, as it integrates my major interests in social justice, health, and India.  I will briefly discuss the caste system, because it is very complex for a beginning Hindi student, so I will focus more on the broader issue of how poverty is correlated with ill health in India.  I will talk about private hospitals, government hospitals, and the experience of "visiting the doctor" in rural/urban India (and how a poor person might be treated differently because of caste), as well as some of the major diseases associated with living in a low-resource setting.  I will utilize my experiences in India to talk about this issues, but I hope to expand upon these experiences by: learning new vocabulary related to health and poverty, utilizing the grammar I have learned by presenting some of the questions a doctor might ask during a visit, and also asking my language partner about her own personal views about health & poverty in India.

Learning goals include: 

-Learn 20 new vocabulary words and expressions related to poverty and health (and maybe caste)

-Learn expressions related to body parts and a visit to the doctor (questions - will utilize interrogatives)

-Audio from conversation with LP

-Listen/watch a public health message from Indian media or one that is translated into Hindi (aimed at Indian population in Canada or in the US)

The history of Hindi is fascinating and very multifaceted, as my presentation (attached) demonstrates in discussing different periods during the development of Hindi.  From this presentation, I learned that the linguistic ancestor of Hindi is Sanskrit, and that colloquial spoken Hindi is mutually intelligible with spoken Urdu.  Although I have heard the similarities of both languages, I did not know that the two were mutually intelligible on a colloquial level. Hindi is considered a "Central Zone" language, meaning that it was originally spoken in Central India.  In 250 BC, classical Sanskrit emerged, and in 400 AD, Apabhransha, which is a derivative of Sanskrit, emerged in literature -- considered to be "old Hindi" (medieval period).  In 800 - 900 AD, the Siddh saints started using an early form of Hindi to make their teachings understandable in the vernacular, and in 1100 AD, modern Devanagari script started to emerge.  In the late 1700s, modern Hindi, as we now understand it, emerged. 

I really enjoyed learning more about the history of Hindi because it also made me realize how formative colonialism was is linguistic history.  For instance, during the fight against British rule in India, many revolutionaries spoke only Hindi as a national symbol -- against the English spoken by the British. However, many medical terms and technological inventions (TV, radio, etc) are still referred to nowadays in English. 

"Hindi" words of English origin:

-TV

-Osteoporosis

-School (although there is an older Hindi term for school...patshala)

-Radio

-Wheatish (a term used when describing a certain skin color)

-University

-Mess (dining hall)

-Engineer

-Computer (कंप्यूटर)

-Jungle

And here is my presentation:

SimrunBal_Hindi-Lang-History.pptx

During this past week (Week #6), I focused on expanding my Hindi vocabulary through learning about an interesting cultural issue in India -- colorism, or the preoccupation the media has with skin color (in India, this is referred to as "Snow White 'Syndrome' ").  Although I continued with my goal of learning basic vocabulary (this week's key vocabulary was composed of words relating to colors and numbers 1-10), I really enjoyed also learning words related to colorism, which was the cultural issue about which I presented in MLC 105.  I learned the word for beauty (सुन्दरता), beautiful (खूबसूरत), pale (gori), dark (kala or kali), face (चेहरा), skin (चमडी), and a few other words related to skin color.  It is a very interesting issue to examine in that the issue of colorism integrates history (colonialism and the caste system), contemporary economics (BBC reported that in India, skin lightening cosmetic products outsell Coca-Cola!), and gender stereotypes.  I also watched and listened to five "Fair and Lovely" Hindi commercials without subtitles, and interestingly, by using the context clues of the ad (each ad is a little story), I was able to understand most of the dialogue, although not the post-positions. The ads are very disheartening to watch because of the blatant colorism, but interesting to observe this aspect of Indian/Hindi culture. I will post a link to one below.  With regard to this week's grammar, I completed some of the drills in Dr. Jain's "Introduction to Hindi Grammar" book about the Present Habitual Tense, and I found that I definitely needed to review this tense more, so I completed the oral conversation drills and worked on writing sentences with this tense -- I am going to utilize these sentences in my artifact.

I also began to plan out and draft my second artifact using my evaluation of the first one.  I really want to work on my accent and on the grammar/vocabulary I am learning, so I am planning to write sentences about my family and about each family member's interests and record this paragraph, as well as pair it with culturally-relevant pictures on VoiceThread.

Here is my MLC 105 cultural presentation, presented on 2/21:

SimrunBal_CulturalPresentation.pptx

Here is a link to one of the sad (but authentic) Fair and Lovely ads (in Hindi) that I watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a1iXt1yPsk

Attached below is my culture presentation, which offers a brief overview of culture in Afghanistan:

Afghan Culture.pptx

Considering my family's Afghan background, I was able to make much of this presentation with my own knowledge. However, there were a few things that I was able to get a better understanding of. For example, I knew buzkashi was the national sport of Afghanistan, but through my research I learned a lot more about the game's rules; which you can read about here: http://www.afghan-web.com/sports/buzkashi.html

Moreover, I learned more about historical sites in Afghanistan, such as the Gardens of Babur and Minaret of Jam.

Below I have linked some useful articles from Wikipedia:

Gardens of Babur

Minaret of Jam

Buzkashi

Culture of Afghanistan

For my first artifact, I wrote a card to my Korean friend's mother. Since our first artifact was supposed to cover introductions, farewells and greetings, I thought it was simple enough to write in a card. For my second artifact, I am planning to do a recording. Since it needs to show that I can answer questions about identity, I feel it can be conversational. The best way to showcase a conversation would be recording it and posting it as an mp3. I can ask a Korean friend to record the conversation with me. For my third artifact, it would be neat to make a slideshow and describe my family through pictures and a voiceover. This way you're not just hearing me talking about my family, you can also get a visual of each person in my family. I think it also makes it more personal this way. As for my fourth artifact, I am planning to keep a detailed journal of my learning task. Learning tasks are mostly topic related and can include vocabulary lists and new sentence formations. I think it would be best to scan what I've been learning and post it here. 

Chief Religions in Afghanistan include the Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Sunni Muslims account for 80 percent of the population.
• They follow Muhammad and his Hadith (speeches/followings in connection with the Quran). There are six books of the Hadith:
• Sahih al-Bukhari
• Sahih Muslim
• Sunan an-Nasa'ii
• Sunan Abu Dawud
• Sunan at-Tirmidhi
• Sunan ibn Majah
Sunnis also have six schools of law that fill in the gaps in answering questions that the Sunnah and Quran do not address (i.e. free will, etc.). There are the Hanafi Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools.

I decided to explore the people of Afghanistan in this cultural post to get a better grasp of the society I am soon to be acquainted with.

First: Ethnic groups in Afghanistan.

I never analyzed this in the past and during research, I was intrigued to find that I had not heard of many of the ethnic groups. This made me realize how closed off I can be from the rest of the world as an American. I will of course strive to change that. I found the ethnic breakdowns on the CIA fact book, but created the chart myself for an easier depiction. People in Afghanistan are called “Afghan” to clear up any confusion.

Link to chart: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/index.asp?ID=eae7f39691324cb9bc2a00fa14a54669

Pashtun are 42 per cent of the population. They are part of the Eastern Iranic ethnic group and have been the dominant group for over 300 years.

Tajik account for 27 per cent of the Afghan population. Tajiks are Persian-speakers of Iranian descent. I discovered that there are even Chinese Tajiks.

These are the dominant ethnic groups found in present-day Afghanistan.

The fact book estimates that there will be 30,419,928 people in Afghanistan by July 2012.

Most Afghan people are between the ages of 15 and 64, with 42.3 per cent of the population below 14 years old. It is shocking that only two percent of the population living past the age of 65.

There are about 40 births per every 1000 people in Afghanistan.

This concludes the basic facts of society in Afghanistan and I will continue to analyze this in future posts.

After researching the Korean language and its history, I think I will be able to learn the language with more understanding. It's important to know how a language developed over the years in order to fully comprehend why somethings sound the way they do. Korean changed over centuries starting with Proto-Korean than to Old Korean, Middle Korean, and now finally, Modern Korean. Konglish (Korean words from English words) was a very interesting subject to learn. It also allowed me to understand why Koreans have such trouble pronouncing some English words. Not all the characters and sounds in English are represented in the Hangul alphabet. 

My next artifact will be a recording of me reading a letter from one of my family members. I would like to do this to represent my understanding of the pronunciation of the letters. I might not be able to understand all the words and phrases, but I hope that if I can read the writing, I will also be able to ask someone what the meaning is.