Upon reflection of my reading "Communicative Competence" I found myself also reflecting upon the MLC class itself. I came to the conclusion that one cannot effectively teach language without culture, and also that the opposite is true. Language and culture must go hand in hand for one to fully grasp either. Language defines the very nature of a culture, a language takes the ideas, the emotions, the history, and the values of a group of people, whether it be a nation or tribe, and translates them into a tangible means of expression. Subsequently without the aforementioned ideas values history and emotions, in other words without the culture, language is nothing. Culture is the proverbial soul of language. One may be able to communicate to another through words, but the same word in one language will not carry with it the same, if any, meaning in another language. There will always be mannerisms, references, and shortcuts within one language that cannot be found in any other, no matter how similar the languages may be. This is why when anyone studies a language, they should also couple that time studying the culture behind it. Otherwise, the words they are studying will remain exactly that to them, only words.
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My culture presentation allowed me to more thoroughly study the history of Hebrew in order to understand the cultural relevance to the modern version of the language. Understanding the history of Hebrew also allows me to become more affluent in comprehending, and explaining Judaism and Israeli culture in general. Because of the religious history of Hebrew, I understand the meaning behind many words, because in many cases, the root of the word has some sort of religious reference or connotation. I also understand the reason why many words for simple things such as "market" or "excellent" are identical, or very similar to the words in Arabic that carry the same meaning. Modern Hebrew brings the history of the jewish tradition, the multicultural relevance which was drawn from it's nomadic beginnings, and the revolutionary adaptiveness of a language which has died and subsequently been revived in a more modern setting.
The Hebrew language is one of the oldest languages that are still commonly used today. The interesting thing about the Hebrew language is that is ties directly to the Jewish religion; in fact, Modern Hebrew had to evolve from it's historic counterpart in order to both incorporate the nuances of the modern world, and to effectively sequester some of the religious themes which were imbedded within the language. The Jews were a nomadic people in the ancient times, this is an explanation for the similarities between the Hebrew language and the various languages through the middle east, such as Arabic. Much of the pronunciation and script in the Hebrew language are audibly and visually similar to that of Arabic. Hebrew nearly died as a language but was revived in the 1800's by a man named Eleazar Ben Yehuda along with the Zionist movement. Since then Hebrew has consistently evolved from being a means of studying religious history into a modern, dynamic language.
As I became more familiar with my language I learned there are pros and cons to learning a language without learning how to read. Because I chose not to learn how to read I became much more sensitive to the pronunciation and forming of words physically than I would have otherwise. I was able to practice my vocabulary based on audible characteristics, and construct a stronger comfort level with interpersonal communication in my language than I would have had I decided to undertake reading as well. The downside to abstaining from the reading part of my language was that I did not have the ability to transliterate words myself. Which means I had to depend upon another person who knows the language if there was script involved. However, considering the give and take of my choice, I believe that i made the right decision in terms of practicality.
I believe that overall, the learning of Turkish individually, was a beneficial experience, however there were definitely some adjustments that could be made. In my learning experience I believe that I should have focused more on vocabulary and its practice. At the end of the semester I did not know as many words as I would have liked to and the reason behind it wasn't me looking up words, but because practicing them and applying them in sentences was something I never did with my language assistant, they would simply be forgotten. My language assistant and I worked more on understanding grammar instead, which is also great but it did not help me reach my goal of being able to conduct a simple but rather broad conversation, instead I only learned a single type of typical dialogue and a lot of grammar that I couldn't even apply with many words since I did not remember them. I believe going over the basic structure of the language and a little bit of history behind it is important because it gives you a better understanding when you look at and use words. That is what my language assistant and I did in our first couple of weeks of studying and it helped me greatly, especially in being able to read and pronounce the language correctly. Overall I felt that by the end of the semester I had a great foundation fro learning but not much skill in speaking. Conducting dialogues with my language assistant is what I think would have benefited me a lot since I would have to use as much Turkish as possible to keep the conversation going and that would enhance my memory of certain words and sayings, as well as the recognition of the language and my quickness of response to typical questions. In this course I believe it necessary to learn and use the language instead of learning why something is said a certain way and the grammar behind it. I thought that the presentations on the culture of our languages was a great idea since it really made me research a topic I had never looked into before and learn a lot about the culture and language through that process. It was great that we had to use many foreign words in the presentation since it made me learn more vocabulary independently. I also believed that it would have been a good idea for me and my partner to have the opportunity to speak in our language in class for ten minutes at least in every of our meetings, it would have challenged us both to learn from each other since we both most likely know something about a specific word or saying that the other one doesn't, and that way we would learn from each others mistakes and knowledge. I also thought that watching cartoons in our language could be very helpful since the language there is simpler and it would have helped me understand pronunciation and the pace of the language. I thought that it was great that everyone could learn about so many cultures in one short semester, it truly brought a lot of previously unknown knowledge to the table for all the students of the class. I also believe that visualization vocabulary learning would have been greatly beneficial for me in learning words, I had tried that method with other languages and it gives a better association with the word than simply seeing the straight up definition of it on a piece of paper. Overall I am happy with my learning of grammar and culture of the language and the foundation I have made for myself for further learning, I am also content with my pronunciation and reading skills, however I am not so pleased with my vocabulary level and speaking skills, as well as response time and recognition of typical questions. I have learned a lot about learning languages this semester and I believe that it will help me in the future if I choose to take on a language by myself, especially since I now know what to avoid and what to execute in order to be a successful individual language learner.
In this journal entry I will discuss a more complicated part of a dialogue with another person that goes over quite a bit of information.
A: Senin adin ne? - What is your name?
B: Merhaba, benim adim Mark, memnum oldum - Hi, my name is Mark, nice to meet you
A: Sen nerelisin? - Where are you from?
B: Ben Ukraina, Kiev lliyim. - I'm from Ukraine, Kiev city
A: Sen kac yashindasin? - How old are you?
B:Ben yirmi yasindayim. - I'm twenty years old
A: Hangi okula gidiyorsun? - Where do you go to school?
B: Ben de Richmond Universitesine gidiyorum. - I go to the University of Richmond
A: Hangi bolumu okuyorsun? - What is your major?
B: Ben pazarlama okuyorun. - I'm studying marketing
A: Saat Kac? Yemek yemek istermisin? - What time is it? Would you like to get a meal?
B: Evet! Ne tur yemek sevarsin? - Yes! What kind of food do you like?
A: Ben sushi severim. - I like sushi
B: Tamam ozaman International center gidelim. - Let's go to the International center
A: Senin kardesin varmi? - Do you have siblings?
B: Benim bir kuz kardisim var, onun adi Anastasia, Anastasia on dort yasinda. - I have one sister, her name is Anastasia, Anastasia is fourteen years old
A: Senin ailen ne is yapiyor? - What do your parents do?
B: Benim babam doktor ve annem, ev hanimi. - My dad is a doctor and my mom is a housemaid
A: Tanistigimiza memnun oldum. Sonra tekrar goruselim. - It was nice meeting you. Let's do this again sometime.
In this journal entry I will discuss why Turkish has an almost completely Latin alphabet, that most people can read,compared to arabic countries that don't, as well as the significance of Ataturk in the Turkish language.
The Turkish Language Association (Turk Dil Kurumu), was established in 1932 under Ataturk's guidance. Its goal was to make the language of Turkey more Turkish, as odd as that may sound now. The Turkish language around 1930 was largely what we now call Ottoman Turkish, and it was heavily cluttered with Persian and Arabic vocabulary. This vocabulary shift followed and built upon the 1928 introduction of a modified Latin alphabet to replace the Persian form of Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish. Arabic script, Persian or otherwise, was a poor means for writing Turkish as the languages use very different sets of sounds. And an Arabic script would be a great difficulty for a country wanting to modernize and connect to the outside world.
Imported words were banned from the press, and the Turk Dil Kurumu went about replacing the Ottoman words with a mix of newly invented words based on Turkish roots and ancient words revived from Old Turkish. For example, shimal had been borrowed from the Persian for north. It was replaced by the Middle Turkic word kuzey, derived from the Old Turkish noun kuz meaning dark and cold place or shadow.
The result was that the vocabulary of spoken and written Turkish started on a huge and continuing shift. The generations in Turkey started speaking very differently, and this difference has remained as the language change has continued.
In this journal entry I will describe the exercises I performed to test my conjugation skills. I was given a sentence and three options to finish the last word in the sentence, Ben Turkim, Turkum, or Turkum, the right answer is ben Turkum which means I'm Turkish. The next sentence was Siz nerelisin, nerelisen, nerelisiniz, nerelisiniz, the right answer is nerelisiniz which means where are you from. The next sentence was Hakan cok yakisikli, yakisikliyim, yakisiklar, yakisiklyiz, the right answer is Hakan cok yakisikli which means Hakan is very handsome. The next sentence was Siz bekar milar, misinz, miz, misin, the right answer is siz bekar misiniz which means are you single. The next sentence was Biz mutluz, mutluyuz, mutlusunuz, mutlular, the right answer was biz mutluyuz, which means we are happy. The next sentence was Sen kac yasindayim, yasindasan, yasindasin, yasinda, the right answer is Sen kac yasindasin, which means how old are you. I also learned that doctor means doctor, kadin means women, cocuk means kid and kor means blind.
In this journal entry I will present some different variations of common greeting conversations in Turkish. A: Merhaba (Hi) B: Merhaba (Hi) A: Ben Haktan, senin adin ne? (I'm Haktan, what's your name?) B: Ben Mark, memnun oldum. (I'm Mark, nice to meet you.) A: Ben de memnun oldum, nasilisin? (Nice to meet you too, how are you?) B: Sagol iyiyim, sen nasilsin? (I am good, and you?) A: Sagol, ben de iyiyim. (I am also good.) B:Gorusuruz! (Goodbye!) A: Hoscakal! (Bye!). We then worked on some conjugations with an exercise where I had to write "I am a student" in all the different conjugation forms. It was presented as: ben ogrenciler, sen ogrenci, o ogrenciyiz, biz ogrencisiniz, six ogrencisin, onlar ogrenciyim. I corrected it to ben ogrenciyim, sen ogrencisin, o ogrenci, biz ogrenciyiz, six ogrencisiniz, onlar ogrenciler. Ben means I, sen means you, o means he/she/it, biz means we, six means the plural form of you, onlar means they. The basic ending for ben is in, sen is sin, o has no ending, biz is iz, siz is siniz, onlar is ler or lar depending on the vowel harmony consisting of back vowels a,i,u,o resulting in lar and the front vowels e,i,u,o resulting in ler. I also learned that bu means this, su means that, o means it and is adami means business man, ve means and, ev means house, muhendis means engineer, evhanimi means house wife, de means also.
FYI: The alphabet is written from right to left; however, the camera takes the "mirror image" so it appears left to right...
Here is my link to my Cultural Presentation!
