Why Bilinguals Are Smarter?

In this article, Bhattacarjee states that in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people."Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter". I do agree with Bhattacarjee and think that bilinguals are smart because if they were not smart, they would not be able to learn totally a different language first of all because learning a different language rather your native language is not an easy thing. You have to be smart, keen, and shape in order to learn a different language. You have to been even superb in order communicate and keep up both of the languages, because you have a great mind in order not to forget either you own language by learning the other one or in the reverse. In addition, as Bhattacarjee mentions that there is "ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language." I think it is such a great point because everything is controlled by brain and if someone has an active and sharp brain then he can actively which it is being smart. 

The "Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction" was a very interesting article. It was very informative the new ideas about creating dictionaries. One part of the article which states" There were people who had listened to the elders, like Mr. Lane, and there were old recordings, made by anthropologists who came through the West in the 1930s and 1960s, but not much else. Mr. Lane wants to incorporate some of those scratchy recordings into future versions of the dictionary." I do agree that with him that it can build a bridge an ancient language’s roots to younger tribe members and it can sound pretty cool. Actually, the article reminded me of a new version of  Iranian dictionary that so many new words have been taken from ancient texts and by adding and bringing some changes. The words sound pretty fancy and cool. It have been used as new modern dictionary in Iran. It is just fascinating that how little things bring big changes to somethings that you could not even think of. :)

Reflect on how knowing a language’s history can help you learn the language:

Before starting how the history of Urdu language helps me as learner to learn the language, it is good to start with some information about it at first hand.Urdu is the first official language of Pakistan.Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet and it has38 letters with no distinct letter cases. Urdu language in 10th century and started its literature through poetry. Urdu came from a Turki word Ordu (Army)/ Lashkar. The language was known as Hindi before 1837 but the division between Hindu and Muslims came to a point that they ended up having different languages. So the people of Pakistan thought to "Khalis"/"purify" Urdu. In order to do that, they used the writing system of Arabic and Persian. So the history of Urdu language helps me to do some researcher on the base of it when i face problems. For instance, if something did not make really sense in Urdu, i go back and search that in Arabic because the base of Urdu is Arabic language. It might not be the same with everyone, especially when some does not have any background in Arabic but as an individual i see it helpful. :)

Culture Shock was a great video and I really enjoyed watching it. There were so many things that came up in the video that I have never even considered. One of the things that really stuck with me was how Americans say "hi, how are you?" but do not really care about the response. I think this is so typical of Americans - in more ways that one! First of all, we are truly always in a rush. Things in the US are just so fast paced. We run by the clock and we think that punctuality is the most important thing in the world. I for sure subscribe to this - I am never late, and I hate when other people are. But at the same time, being nice and kind and having great relationships with people is really important to me, and I would never want anyone to think that I don't care about their response to my question. According to Culture Shock, however, I do that all the time! That is just insane. I didn't think about that. I also didn't really think about the period of time that it takes international students to adjust to life here in the US. When I think about my trips overseas, I have never had a hard time adjusting because I haven't tried to. Since I have just been traveling, and not preparing to live for a period of time, I have not been setting up my life for a period of time and I had no culture to which I needed to adjust. I think it's fascinating that I just took this period of adjustment for granted for these international students. Watching this video made me much more aware of what many of these students enter into/leave behind when they come to America to study, and I will try to be more aware of how their practices might differ from mine (i.e. not raising their hands as much in class).

This week I did some research on Swedish history and I found that the things I'd learned explained a lot about either Swedish culture or language. For the purpose of this journal I will list the things I've learned along with the significance of these facts for my studies.

Swedish History

-800-1050: The Vikings have a strong exploring presence around the world and discover territories in the Middle East, Russia, and in what is now the northern United States and Canada. The Vikings had their own alphabet and number system which was very sophisticated. They also believed in many gods such as Oden, Thor, and Freja. Now that I know that the Vikings worshiped these gods I understand why Wednesday is called onsdag (Oden's day), Thursday is called torsdag (Tor's day), and Friday is called fredag (Freja's day).

-1520: The Danish invade Stockholm and the Stockholm’s bloodbath commences. Over 100 noblemen and other members of the government are publicly executed in the main square. This is the beginning of the hostility between Sweden and Denmark! For centuries the two countries battled over territory and power. Today there is still some underlying hostility between the two nations (Swedes and Danes can typically understand each others' languages but they refuse to speak the other language due to this deep-seated dislike).

-1523: Gustav (Vasa) Erikson elected King after rebel movement on June 6^th. He is referred to as the founder of modern Sweden and father of the nation! This historical date is why June 6th is a national holiday in Sweden that is celebrated and adored by everyone in the country (it's often called "flag day" and is similar to our Fourth of July).

-Peace for 200 years because good at compromise and negotiation in both their personal lives and on a diplomatic scale. In fact, Sweden remained neutral in both of the World Wars in the 20th century. This fact is interesting and controversial because Sweden had resources that could have accelerated the liberation but they chose instead to remain neutral. This makes sense in terms of the Swedes I know because they tend to be people who avoid conflict in their daily lives and don't appreciate drama.

-1921: women are allowed to vote for the first time! This is interesting to me because Sweden today is a much more egalitarian country than the U.S. in terms of culture and policies and yet women in America were given the right to vote BEFORE Swedish women! 

I hope these important dates/events are as helpful for you as they were for me in understanding Swedish culture and their language!

I have learned so many new words. Things got off to a slow start this semester, through a combination of several people's disorganization, but Emily, Stew and I are getting into a pattern. We meet a couple times a week and Stew and I come to the meeting with a list of things we want to know. Sometimes, Emily has ideas too. She has a good teaching style - we are getting to the point where I kinda can guess how to spell things, so she asks me to spell and I do my best. This gives me the opportunity to think about the word, see it, spell it, write it, hear her say it, all before I have even tried to speak it myself. 

One of the things I have been considering in whether or not my language goals are realistic is how I am not learning verbs. I am confused by this. I think the verb conjugation structure is confusing, or maybe I am not advanced enough for it. At this point, I am just learning to "memorize" phrases and words. This works for me. Honestly, I have a lot of stuff going on right now, and sometimes all I can do is just work on the 20 words and phrases that we studied that night. But I know that I want to work on actual verb conjugation. This is my next goal. I am planning to take SDLC 111 next semester and it is going to be interesting to actually think about my goals again. I think my biggest goal is to actually just be more clear in my goals. I think both Emily and I are very capable. I just think we need to direct our energy to the same place and be very clear at the beginning of the semester what the place is, and I think because so much time passed at the beginning of this semester before I actually got my language partner, I lost sight of some of my goals and it just got confusing. So next semester I will make sure it is different!

Hebrew has a very long history. Ancient forms of the language date back almost six thousand years, and the exact form of Hebrew that I am using to read and write has been around since the 6th century BCE. This is crazy. Jesus and I wrote the same Hebrew! Just kidding but really. Hebrew has such a rich history. It began as a "proto-Canaanite" script, which was very similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Basically, there were little pictures that represented the same letters that exist today. So the alphabet had the same nature and sounds, it was just written very differently. As the Ancient Israelites interacted with different groups in the Middle East, the Ancient Hebrew script changed slightly, and settled on the Ancient Biblical Hebrew several centuries before Jesus. I think this is a fascinating concept. While written Hebrew had died out by this time (with the destruction of the second temple), prayers were said in the same language 2500 years ago that I say now. That is crazy. I think this has an impact on my language learning experience because it makes me more connected to my experience. Sometimes, things happen in my religious life that really make me feel so connected to my faith - and that is one of the reasons that being Jewish is special, because with being connected to my faith comes being connected to this study of Hebrew. My mind is really blown right now with the things I have learned about how old Hebrew is as a language, and how remarkably little it has changed. It also makes me sad though. Yiddish, the mixture of Hebrew and German that was developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, pretty much died out because of the Holocaust (also as a result of the resurrection/creation of Modern Hebrew by Ben Yehuda at the end of the 19th century). The fact that the annihilation of a group of people caused the destruction of a language makes me feel even more certain that it is my job to continue learning Hebrew. Even though Hebrew has a whole country dedicated to it, I just feel that I need to make sure there are people who do not live in Israel and who are still interested in this language, its history, and its cultural components. It feels very important to me.

This week rather than having our traditional Monday/Wednesday meetings we decided to meet on Saturday for multiple hours. We went to the grocery store to buy supplies for dinner and along the way we spoke Swedish, learned words for the specific ingredients we were buying, and talked about traditional Swedish food. We made the most delicious Swedish meatballs (köttbullar), mashed potatoes (potatismos), and ate lingonberries (lingonsylt). It's interesting because when I think of meatballs I think of the Italian meatballs that my mom makes which are served with red sauce and pasta. These were so different but also incredible!

We also learned phrases like "tack för maten" which is what you say to someone when they have paid for your meal or made your food (it literally means "thanks for the food"). Also, I know a lot more about Swedish customs when it comes to eating now! This was a really fun way to learn new vocabulary and it was nice to be able to use the food words in sentences and in a specific context. We took pictures to use for my artifacts too! I imagine we will go over the food words we learned tomorrow and have a test later this week :)

In honor of the Halloween festivities this past weekend I thought I would do this week's cultural post on Swedish Halloween! Halloween is not a holiday that was traditionally celebrated in Sweden but since the 1990s and with the help of American influences and some marketing efforts, Swedes have begun to enjoy the holiday like us Americans do. Although Swedes do not engage in trick-or-treating like Americans do for Halloween, they do dress up and go to fancy parties or have ghost parties. Lots of bars and restaurants also stage parties for celebration as Swedes begin to adopt the holiday. Also, many farms take part in pumpkin growing competitions!

Interestingly, after talking to my Swedish friends I have learned that Easter is actually the holiday when Swedes dress up and go trick-or-treating. While Americans tend to have Easter egg hunts, eat chocolate bunnies, and hang out with a giant Easter bunny, young Swedish children dress up in traditional garb that looks like old ladies and run around the neighborhood trick-or-treating (but it's not called that). I find this case so interesting because I can see how an American tradition is being incorporated into another culture and yet this culture still holds on to their unique traditions. My boyfriend is in graduate school right now in Madrid, Spain and his friends are from all over the world and yet they all wanted to dress up in traditional "American" Halloween costumes to celebrate.

http://sweden.se/collection/celebrating-the-swedish-way-a-year-of-traditions/article/halloween/

After reading communicative competence and discussing it with a few class mates the thing I began to think of most was the concept of sarcasm. I know it isn't entirely the same thing as the article discussed (the article spoke more about being able to understand the language outside of just vocabulary). But with sarcasm it is more about understanding the context of what the person is saying. When you first learn a new language it is primarily focused on learning the words and how to formulate sentences. But actually learning how to speak than language and understand the context of the language is a whole new thing. I know I am a very sarcastic person and a lot of my international friends have trouble understanding my sarcasm because they are doing the basic steps of translating the things I said and are trying to form a response. Another point I wanted to bring up about the article is that language is not always a literal translation and thats what can be so frustrating sometime. For example after I left Molly and Louise for our Swedish dinner I was trying to tell them "thank you for a goodnight" so I translated it to "tak for bra natt" but then Louise responded "tack for en trevlig kvall" (thanks for a nice night). Looking at what I said you could assume I was right because I was using the vocab I had learned but it was the context that made my statement incorrect. I think thats the next step of learning a language, is to learn the context and be able to combine everything you know.

This week instead of meeting at our usual times we combined both classes and met on a saturday. Before class we were supposed to look up the recipe for Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. When we met on saturday we went to the grocery store and got at all the items we needed and learned the names for all those items. We also got this  lingonberry sauce that is a very popular sauce to put on almost anything in Sweden. The cooking was fun and interesting to do and the meal was fantastic. Although this week we didn't really focus on the language as much as we did the culture. Learning how to make a traditional dish and learning the basic mannerisms for the table was our main focus. I think it was an interesting lesson, and was really cool to be able to have more of a hands on experience opposed to just learning vocabulary. 

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Both weeks Emily and I went through the book and we spent some time off campus and spoke Hebrew.   I am getting better and feeling much more comfortable speaking and listening to her talk as long as she speaks slowly, which is still annoying for her. :/  

With the Winter Olympics at Sochi coming up in a few months and my cultural project's focus on sports, I thought it would be interesting to explore Afghanistan's presence at the Olympics over the years. That said, Afghanistan's participation in the Olympics has been rather interesting over the last few decades. Afghanistan first sent athletes - 14 in total - to the Olympics in 1936, when the Summer Games were held in Berlin. However, of the 18 Summer Olympics since 1936, Afghanistan has only participated in 13 due to a variety of reasons. In addition, likely unsurprising to most, Afghanistan has never competed at the Winter Olympics. Afghanistan followed up the Summer Games at Berlin by sending 31 athletes to the next Summer Olympics that was held in London in 1948 - there was a delay between the London and Berlin Summer Games due to World War II; those 31 athletes were the highest number representing Afghanistan across its 13 appearances at the Olympics. 

Afghanistan  did not compete at the Summer Games in Helsinki in 1952, but the nation returned in 1956 to participate in the Summer Games at Melbourne. Of the first three - 1936, 1948 and 1956 - Summer Games that Afghanistan participated, the only sport that it consistently sent athletes for was field hockey; this was really interesting for me to learn about as I never really knew that the nation had enough exposure to the sport to the point where it could have a national field hockey team. The nation continuously competed at the Summer Games until missing the 1976 Summer Olympics at Montreal. Afghanistan did make a return to the Summer Olympics by competing in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Afghanistan's participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics is quite interesting as many nations chose not to participate at the Summer Games in the Soviet Union due to its recent invasion of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, primarily due to the nation's Communist rule. Likewise, it also skipped the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona. Furthermore, the nation was banned, due to the Taliban and its treatment of women, from participating in the 2000 Summer Olympics at Sydney. Consequently, Afghanistan's participation in the Olympics alternated heavily (i.e., did appeared in 1972, did not 1976, did 1980, did not 1984, etc.) until recent years. Afghanistan has competed in the last three Summer Olympics (2004, 2008 and 2012), correlating with its progress over the last few years. Even more important, Afghanistan won its first Olympic Medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing with Rohullah Nikpai winning a Bronze Medal in taekwondo. Nikpai returned to the 2012 Summer Olympics at London and repeated his previous feat by winning Bronze in taekwondo, again. 

You can read more about Nikpai, Afghanistan's first medal winner, here.

http://prezi.com/fyts9xovb_a0/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Below are some useful expressions (I figured pronunciation would be more helpful than actual script) that one who does not know Dari can learn quite quickly after some practice:

Can you help me?   Mey toaneyd beh men kemek keneyed?

Do you speak English?   Aya shoma anekeleyesey sehebet mey keneyed?

What time is it?   Saat chand ast?

What is your name?   Asem shoma cheyesete?

How much is this?   Chequeder ast?

Hi!   Salam!

Good morning   Sobh bekheir

Good afternoon   Baad az zohr bekheir

Good evening   Asr bekheir

Thank you   Taashakur

How are you?   Chetoor asti?

Good   Khob

Most people are very collectivist in Pakistani culture. The families very dependent on each other and spend lots of time together. The male attitudes toward female are very different than the West. For instance, the female should obey the male most of the time. They had different rules in the family as well. They need to spend most of the time together while they are in the house. I have found the amazing article and share the link :)

This article is about attitudes and families. It was very interesting and thought to share it.

http://http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00289568

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ZFZxQP7oA 

Benim en sevdigim sarkici Emina Jahovic. O Bosnada yasti, ama simdi Turkiyede yasiyor. O Mustafa Sandalin kadi. Onlar iki cocuklar var. O otuz uc. Onun en unlu sarkilar "Dal ona zna", "Posle mene". Bosnadan Turkiyeye birkac yil once gitti. When she was cocuk, o basketbol oynudu. Emina cok yuksek (178 cm). O cok siska, ve because of that onun annesi onu basketbol oynamak yasak. Bir erker kardesi ve bir kiz kardesi var. Onun erkek kardesi NBAda oynuyor. Onun babasi oldu. Balkanda Emina ve onun erkek kardesi cok unlu. Onun telefon numarasi 0038770342345.