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Knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. In fact, knowing the Korean language history, I feel, is almost required. Korea's language is divided into three parts: 1) Romanized Western words, 2) Hanja (the Chinese-influenced Sino-Korean), and 3) Hangeul (native Korean words). Knowing the Korean language history will tell of how the language evolved from Hanja and progressed to Hangeul.

In addition, some words use different parts of the Korean language. Telling time, for example, uses Hangeul for the hour and Hanja for the minute. I found this website helpful: http://www.omniglot.com/language/numbers/korean.htm

Even though I do not remember how to write Chinese as well as I used to, knowing that Korean language has Chinese influence has helped me learn the language. Many words in Korean sound similar to Chinese, but have been modified for independence purposes. However, because of this, I am able to learn words easier.

I also learned that the Korean language has some Confucianism roots. Confucianism emphasizes hierarchy, which explains the reasoning for why honor, pride, and respect are emphasized so much in the Korean language. There are multiple ways to say different phrases. You can say "komawo," or "komawoyo," "kahmsahamnida," and many other words, just to say "thank you." The difference is that each variation has a higher or lower level of respect. With this knowledge in mind, it is not unusual to tell your age when first meeting someone in Korea. Koreans "like" to know your age so that they know how to address you. Learning why you say different things in Korean will help you "reason" and know when to use certain phrases.

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Reading the article, I didn't realize that learning another language helps to improve brain activity. I'm surprised but then again I'm kind of happy that it does. This means that my brain is smarter than others. HA

In my opinion, knowing two languages does make it difficult for me to converse with people especially relatives of my native language. When I was younger, I was really fluent in Cantonese. But as I grew up and went to school, English grew to become more fluent and override the other. And so now, it's really difficult for me to converse with my grandmother for example since I forgot most words and don't talk as much in Canto as I do in English. I'm more exposed to English than the other way. I do deeply regret this. I wish I had tried harder to maintain this part of my heritage since it does really help in talking with my grandma who I don't really know too well or her history because of a language barrier.

Some cultural people that I know are also having the same issue as myself. They either didn't get the opportunity to be exposed to this part of their heritage because of their parents or they have forgotten completely. In general for me, if I got the opportunity to do this again, I would go back and actually try to talk more in the language.

It's true that bilinguals have to switch from one language to another and must adapt to what is being said and are efficient in doing so. But I think this applies only to people who are fluent in both languages and doesn't really work for people who are inadequate in one of the languages. For me personally, I definitely have difficult in adapting since I'm more fluent in English. I try to speak in Canto to my parents but it just ends up being half Canto and half English. Therefore, I don't think I can really enjoy the benefits unless I really make an effort to be fluent in both my languages.

Note: I forgot to write in the Romanized word for "father," which is "abeoji."

Reflection:

• The current task I am working on is trying to memorize the proper names for each of my family members. There are informal ways to mention people, though.
• My strategy was to create a family tree style diagram to help me better visualize all the words I had to memorize for my direct family. What is important to note is that there are different words for members on the father's and mother's side.
• I believe that the strategy was effective because I am a visual learner, and this helped me learn the words quicker than if I just tried to memorize everything straight from a list.
• Because this was successful, I will build upon this and try to learn more through diagrams in the future.
• I tried this strategy because previous surveys concluded that I was a visual learner.

Other aspects:

• I think I had some emotions of enthusiasm because the structure of family names were similar to that of Korean. So it was understandable when there were words for "grandfather on father's side."
• This was a successful experience because the words were manageable and I was able to learn the words without too much difficulty.
• In the short term, I want to learn how to address everyone formally. In the long-term, I could learn some words on how to address family members informally.

These weekly summaries reflect on my learning and my work with my language partner, with 1) resources used, 2) how I worked with my tutor, and 3) activities I found most effective

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Despite that, the article is really interesting. I was so surprised when I read that there are only 5 speakers today. It's sad to see how much urban development has affected these unique languages. Honestly, Americans should realize how much destruction they have caused to these people. Past Native American policies have pushed languages like Siletz to the very edge of extinction or close to it. I read an article that mentioned how birthrates in these reservations are extremely low. And so, this definitely makes it difficult for the language to survive with these new babies. What I don't understand is who is Bud Lane? The article mentions that everyone who learned Siletz as a first language are all gone today. But did he learn English and Siletz together? He seems pretty knowledgeable about the language, enough so that he can teach others.

I think the online dictionary is a great idea. It gives outsiders the opportunity to explore and learn the language. Additionally it helps native speakers be familiar with their culture and their heritage. But I question the quality of the recordings. Often times, digital recordings have difficulty capturing the correct pronunciation of words. Or sounds are really hard to capture correctly. Therefore, a speaker saying one word doesn't sound exactly the same as on the recording.

I'm glad though that the language has been able to survive during these difficult times when so few speakers are alive today. It definitely shows how strong the language is and could be. Thinking about North America's Native Americans, it reminds me a little of Australia's Aboriginal people and how they are having the same issue. One difference though is that the Aboriginals seem to have a much larger population. There also seems to be better cultural protection practices in place, allowing the culture itself to prosper even if they were to have few numbers.

Ancient Korean had several Chinese characters, and the script was called the Hanja. Hanja's assumed association with aristocracy made it prevalent even after the invention of an absolute new script called the Hangul. But with time, Hangul has now replaced Hanja. Korean as we know it now has Hangul as its script. Hangul was invented in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great. He aimed to create a minimalist, smart language that could be understood by the masses, since people not belonging to noble families could not read the Hanja. Invention of the Hangul led to a high increase in the literacy rate, and also increased the Korean people's political awareness.

While learning a language, especially one like Korean where the script is so systematic, I end up memorizing vocabulary and writing styles in a very (for lack of a better word) mathematical way. For me, Hangul was more a puzzle and equation to solve, until I began studying its culture and history. Studying the history of a language indirectly connects you to the native speakers and their experiences with their language. Learning how a language came about helps you better understand your own growth with the language. And history also provides an emotional aspect to language learning and prevents it from becoming an analytic exercise rather than a culturally immersing and growing experience.

Week  4/5

Specific Goals

• Family members
• Food
• Drinks
• How to order at a restaurant
• How to get around if lost

Tasks

• Be able to talk about my family
• Be able to ask questions about others’ families
• Be able to describe my favorite food and drinks
• Practice ordering food as if I was at a restaurant
• Be able to ask for directions

Evaluation: I was successful in learning terms of family members as well as food and drinks. However, I did not get to practice ordering at a restaurant as well as asking for directions. I had to go back to those the next week.  When learning family vocab, it was helpful drawing a family tree. I also learned to say simple phrases such as “I have one sister.” I think I could have been too ambitious in all that I wanted to learn in one week, as I realized I could not accomplish all of it. 

My first artifact is a letter to my mom wishing her happy birthday and letting her know how much she means to me and my siblings. I did something like this last year, but this letter's more complex in writing structure than the last since it uses more conjuncts. 

Things I want to work on:

-Fluidity of my handwriting

-Writing longer sentences and more complex structures than this, maybe I should start working on essays or short stories on my own?

Things I got better at:

-The placement of the vowels and knowing where to put them, for example the ekar (া) I used to put it in the wrong spots when they wouldn't be needed for the word

-Basic conjuncts such as the (ক্ত্) the k + t

Artifact 1:

Artifact 2:

In this artifact, I typed Bangla over skype with Sabrina. Since her keyboard wasn't working, she answered me over the webcam while I typed in Bangla. 

হেল Hello

11:35 PM

ঐটা কি টিখ Is this right?

11:37 PM

?

11:37 PM

বাঙলাদেশ Bangladesh (I was testing the keyboard by writing random things at this point)

11:38 PM

ঠ

11:39 PM

ঢ

সালাম সাবরিনা Salam, Sabrina 

11:43 PM

তুমি কেমন আছ? How are you?

11:45 PM

কিনতু তুমি ঐমনি ঔনেক পাগল Why are you very crazy? (She had said she was)

11:47 PM

েমনি (I was trying to correct a misspelled word in the sentence from here to down there)

11:48 PM

এমনি 

11:48 PM

অমনি

11:48 PM

আনেক

11:49 PM

অমনি (The word was very)

11:49 PM

অনেক (Finally fixed!)

11:49 PM

ছয়রে বশে অমার পাসা বেতা কোরে The chair I'm sitting on is hurting my butt

11:51 PM

কাতের চআইর It's a wooden chair

11:51 PM

অঅঅঅআ (Aaaaa)

11:52 PM

আমার (It entered this before I was ready for it to be sent)

11:52 PM

আমার অনেক কাজ আচে আর আমি কোরতে চায় না. আরবির পরোজেকত, একতা কলাসের জন্‌(রোপালা) I have a lot of homework and I don't want to do it. I have an Arabic project and I have to present it

11:59 PM

Friday on Skype

আছে I have it (I was responding to something she asked)

0:00 AM

করতে চাই.  I want to do it. 

This is the skype conversation from another day, there was more to it, but it got lost in the skype chat box. I'm just going to use it as part of this one artifact. I was on skype with my niece and we were talking about her. 

From this chat session, I've learned that I have a lot of spelling errors for simple words. Since I speak Bangla colloquially, it's easier for me to mess up the correct form of a verb because I think I know it, but my slurs and fast speech leaves out certain letters, but I'm not always aware of it. In English, it'd be the equivalent of situations in which one says things like "don't worry 'bout it" when it's actually "don't worry about it". They're minor differences, but it's not something that I can get away with in writing. I need to work on articulating the sounds more when writing, and even in normal speech. 

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In Israel, the culture regarding business and money transactions is fairly similar to that of the United States. As they are both Westernized nations, they both have decently casual approaches to business deals and business interactions. In Israel, like in the US, top business execs often have meetings, in which the protocol is similar to the United States. Hands are often shaken at the beginning of a meeting, and formalities exchanged. 

Just as in the United States, there are many top big businesses in Israel, especially in the technology/science/defense arenas. Because Israel exists in a dangerous region (for them, as Jews) they have long had to be on the cutting edge of information technology, defense and any other scientific fields that help in the defense industry. They have developed miraculous new aeronautical and spyware systems to help shield  them from missiles.

In Israel, businessmen live the same often extravagant lifestyle that they do in the United States. Business execs are given a healthy salary and often live a very privileged existence. They enjoy other perks of a Western existence: lots of money, fancy cars, etc. However, in Israel, the advanced society often mixes with the Orthodox Jews in an interesting way, causing some old-fashioned customs to mix with the new industrial customs of the Western world. 

Culture Post 1: Pohela Boishakh

Pohela Boishakh (literally means first year) is the Bengali New Year and is celebrated in Bangladesh and West Bengal in India as well as other Bengali communities all over the world. It normally occurs during April 14 or 15 and it is one of Bangladesh's national holidays. Pohela Boisakh isn't a religious holiday, but rather a cultural part of Bangladesh and so it's celebrated by all groups in the country. Pohela Boisakh dates back to the Mughal period during Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar's reign when he made a change to the calendar in order to change the date of the agricultural tax collection to make it easier for his people. Since the calendar used before was based on the lunar calculations, a mixture of lunar and solar calculations was used for the calendar reform which was quite unique since very different methods of calculation were used for each one. Every year people celebrated this change by sharing sweets, closing down stores, and festivals and fairs and thus Pohela Boisakh became integrated into the culture. 

In respects to the agricultural origins of Pohela Boisakh, people celebrate agricultural and rural aspects of Bangladesh by eating simplistic foods such as "Pantā-Bhāt (leftover rice soaked in water), onion,Shōbuj Lōnkā (green chillies), Āchār (pickles), dāl (lentils) &Bhāja Elish Māch (fried Hilsa fish)". People also dress up, women adorn themselves with red bindis wear saris while men will wear kurtas. Fairs are especially popular during this time because it accumulates various aspects of Bengali culture such as clothing, food, dancing/cultural performances. In 1965 when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, the Pakistani government banned poems by Rabindranath Tagore in an attempt to suppress Bengali culture. Being that he was such an integral part of Bengali culture, a Bangladeshi cultural group, Chhayanat, resisted the ban and played Tagore's songs/poems as the opening to a Boisakh celebration. From then on, Rabindranath became steeped into the new year celebration and Pohela Boisakh became even more of a part of the peoples' heritage and sense of nationalism. 

Since I'm interested in writing Bangla and its word formations, I found this chart interesting.

Photos of the celebration:

Source: http://promotebangla.blogspot.com/2011/11/pohela-boishakh-bengali-new-year.html#.U12TgvldWSo

Culture Post 2: Liberation of Bangladesh

I knew the general reason for the liberation of Bangladesh, but I wanted to learn more about it and become familiar with the context so I researched the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. 

Pakistan was essentially created on the Indian Subcontinent in order to reconcile with the vast religious differences between the Muslims and Hindus. In 1946, Pakistan officially became its own state including part of the the other side of India, which would eventually become Bangladesh. East Pakistan, as it was known, faced oppression and injustices from West Pakistan, creating grievances towards them. One of the catalyst for the Bangladesh liberation movement was with declaring Urdu as the official language of Pakistan, discluding Bengali entirely although 56% of the population spoke Bengali. Proposing Urdu and Bengali as the official language became rejected and Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, asserted that Urdu would be the official language despite any disagreements. Bengali was rejected since it derived from Sanskrit and thus had more "Hindu roots" whereas Urdu had Arabic and Persian incorporated in the language. By discluding Bengali when it was the mainly spoken in East Pakistan, it effectively removed them from participating in Pakistani affairs/rule as Urdu was a foreign language to them. On February 21, 1952, the conflict regarding the language escalated when seven students were killed during a language protest. This day is considered one of the most important days in Bangladesh history as it invoked a greater sense of nationalism regarding the Bengali identity and separating the people from West Pakistan even more. Aside from language, West Pakistan was the governing state of East Pakistan and thus controlled the economic aspects of the state. Though East Pakistan was more rich in resources and earned more, they received less revenue (about 25%) than the West. There were events that shaped the liberation movement, but in the end when West Pakistan began to see its grip slipping from East Pakistan, it attempted to reclaim it by appointing a governor, Tikka Khan, but he was denied entry. Sheikh Muzibur Rahman, the leader of the Awami League that wanted autonomy for East Pakistan, rallied the Bangladeshi people and all the events culminated into a war. India allied with Bangladesh to fight for their liberation and with their more sophisticated weapons and guerilla war training, Bangladesh won the war against East Pakistan within 13 days and seceded in December 16, 1971. It was one of the bloodiest and shortest wars in history. 

Sources: 

http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/history/overview_akram.html

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~nahar/cv/bdliberation-essay8.pdf

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16111843

Sex.

In every culture, there are appropriate and inappropriate norms regarding physical intimate activity. In Israel, there is a sharp divide between the norms practiced by religious Jews and the actions of the young and liberal Israeli youth. In Judaism, sex is seen as a very significant act, as one that is not to be done lightly and one with extreme consequences. There are holy days of the year on which one should or should not have sex, and explicitly defined is the expectation that one should only be having sex with a spouse.

In Israel, there is a growing number of youth who are secular, and who choose not to adhere to the Jewish cultures regarding sex. Just as in America, Israeli youth treat sex casually. However, they often lose their virginity at a later age, and they have stereotypes about American girls being the type to have sex very casually. I guess I would say that while Israeli youth do have sex more casually than the Orthodox people in Israel, they are not at the level of comfort with random hookups, etc that American teens are.

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I had always heard people say knowing more than one language enhances your cognitive abilities, thus makes you smarter, but I had never really given any importance to that statement because I wasn’t sure how accurate it was. Apparently, bilinguals are better able to ignore distractions and are better at solving logic puzzles. However, I think about myself and know this is not true..I can speak three languages, yet I get quite easily distracted! However, I think the part about being able to solve mental/logic puzzles is true because bilinguals can think and speak in multiple languages, thus their critical thinking ability is augmented. In addition, it is easier for a bilingual to learn a new language than someone who speaks only one language to learn another. I think because bilinguals have already expanded their mental abilities and exercised their brain’s capabilities, they are able to have an easier time picking up a new language. At the end of the day, knowing more than one language has many benefits, and I think everyone should learn as many languages as they can in their lifetime!

It is both a frightening and sad thought that there are many languages on the verge of extinction. It’s funny because when I think of the word extinction, I automatically think of animals! It’s weird to think languages can be classified as extinct as well. My parents often express how important it is for me to learn my native tongue, Tamil. I am so happy and appreciative that they started speaking to me in Tamil from a young age, because now I am in fluent in it.

Because there is such a strong need and desire to learn languages such as English and Spanish, the importance for other more less-common languages is diminished. In the article, the author discusses the reemergence of tribal languages. One method that was used was creating an online talking dictionary that quickly became popular.

I think the responsibility of keeping a language alive lies among our generation, the youth. Our ancestors grew up speaking these beautiful languages, and now it is our turn to be willing to learn these languages and continue their lifespan. I know that I will without a doubt, teach my children Tamil!

A) Korea's History and Language (presented w/Allan Peng)

http://prezi.com/zsy3lc_pidhk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

B) Korean Nightlife

http://prezi.com/j4zohecx1vqq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

C) Korea's Cosmetic Surgery Phenomenon (Cultural Project presented w/Allan Peng)

http://prezi.com/3pans_qrmsn2/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Knowing a language’s history can definitely help when learning a language. A history of a language can help in understanding the etymology of many of the words as well as influences from other languages. Hindi is a language that has a huge influence from and on a variety of other languages. Some of these languages include Arabic, Urdu, Spanish, Greek, Italian, German, etc.  Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same languages with different scripts. Hindi uses the Devangari script and is a direct descendant of Sanskrit.

Knowing the history of Hindi has allowed me to find similarities between Hindi words and Arabic words for example. I took a semester of Arabic, and realized there are quite a few words that both languages share. For example, “kitab,” meaning book, is common to both Arabic and Hindi.

The history of a language allows people to really appreciate not only the language but the cultural significance behind a language. We are able to gain a deeper understanding for both the culture and its language.