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Attached below are a copy of the slides from my cultural project:

From Modernity to Extremism: The Taliban's Affect on Afghanistan

Unfortunately, a PowerPoint was too large to attach, so the file is in PDF format. As a result, you cannot listen to the NPR interview in slide 9 through the PDF, but you can listen to it here. 

Below is a brief synopsis of my project:

Islam has a role in Afghanistan for centuries, with the religion first being introduced in the region the country currently occupies in 642. It several centuries for Islam to fully spread across Afghanistan, where it still remains the predominantly Muslim; in fact, over 99% of the nation identifies as Muslim. Moreover, adding to Islam's influence in the nation, it serves as Afghanistan's state religion.

Jumping ahead to the mid-20th century, Afghanistan, for the time, was a very modern nation. Women were not wearing burqas, education was a possibility for men and women, the nation was not engaged in any wars (foreign or civil) and political freedom was rampant. However, rural areas of the country maintained conservative beliefs relative to the modernity seen in urban areas and cities such as Kabul.

Although it seemed that Afghanistan was on a path to progress, war tarnished everything the country was positioning itself towards. The Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan left the nation in unfavorable state and even after the Soviets' departure, civil warfare soon ensued in Afghanistan.

The turmoil in Afghanistan allowed an extremist insurgent group, the Taliban, to gain power. The Taliban strictly adhered to Sharia law, and used violence and terror to ensure all Afghans adhered. The Taliban's action led to the suppression of women's rights, education and any type of freedom found in the modern world.  

Although the Taliban's reign in government only lasted from 1996 to 2001, the insurgent group still maintains a presence. The next few years will be crucial in determining if the Taliban's presence heightens to its previous level or diminishes. With both new leadership and U.S. troop withdrawal slated for 2014, the next few years will shape Afghanistan path towards its golden age of during the 1940s to 1970s.

The sources for my project were:

Historical Sketch of Buddhism and Islam in Afghanistan [Alexander Berzin] 

Country Profile: Afghanistan [Library of Congress]

Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan... [Foreign Policy]

Afghanistan's Untold Story: Stability, Tourists, Miniskirts [CNN]

Taliban Causes Most Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan, U.N. Says [NYT]

How Anti-Islam Movie Helps the Taliban [The Daily Beast]

Photos Of Afghanistan's Past: Modernity Lost [NPR]

I used 27 words in my project, which were the following:

Goal of the week: to make sentences that focuses on greeting and the home (to get myself prepared for the beginners examination)

This week my language partners and I met twice. This will be the last time we meet this semester. I am sad about that but I am looking forward to seeing them again in January for Gujarati part II.  This week focused mostly on making sentences and talking about gender differences in Indian/Gujarati culture. We talked about the differences between males and females in Gujarati culture as well as male privilege. I felt this was necessary because so of the patriarchal society that Gujarat has. It definitely follows Gujarati families even into the UK and the USA or wherever some families decide to move. This inspired me to do further research on Eastern cultures and the ways in which women are treated differently. There are definitely some similarities within the cultures but also unique differences.

As for my sentence structures for this week, I made a dialogue. I feel like I'm progressing in this language:

Aakash: namaste priyaben. avo beso: Hello Pooja, Welcome, please take a seat

Priya: namaste aakashbhai, o ho! tamaru ghar saras che: Namaste prachi. Wow, your house is beautiful.

Aakash: ha bajuma rasodu che. upar pan be ordo chhe: The kitchen is next door. There are two rooms above.

Priya: vah

Aakash: A gal bag che ane pachhal. tya shakbhaji uge chhe: There is a garden in the

Priya: saras. tamari jaga saras che:How nice! Your place is beautiful.

Susan Jelanizada

Dr. Grove

SDLC 105

Reflection Paper # 3

Learning a new language is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had, at the same time, it is also one of the most challenging experiences.

I have always been a lover of languages different from my own, and I have been a quick language learner. My purpose in SDLC 105 was to expand on my learning skills of a new language and know more about the culture and traditions of different people around the world specifically my target language “Urdu”. Also, spending some years in Pakistan as an immigrant I never had the chance to learn and know their culture professionally. Therefore my goal in SDLC 105 was to keep and maintain my language skills in Urdu from my past experience, and gain more knowledge about the culture.  More specifically, I wanted to be able to navigate between the past, present, and future tenses with relative ease, learn and understand about Urdu poetry and understand short sentences and conversations well.

            These goals were very realistic and easily attainable for me, because I had past experience with speaking and hearing Urdu language. The course covered material ranging from grammatical constructions and syntactic structures to cultural aspects of the language, such as music, poetry, and regional social norms of Urdu-speaking countries like Pakistan and India.  In the process of taking SDLC 105 I was able to have a structured schedule of language learning.  I can say with confidence that I am now able to navigate with greater ease throughout the various tenses in Urdu, and I learned a tremendous amount of new vocabulary words, I can read and understand short and simple poems and understand conversations very well. 

Another aspect of SDLC 105 I was really pleased with was the cultural presentations.  Through these presentations, I had the opportunity to research and learn more about different cultures and traditions such as Hindi, Gujarati and Bosnian. I was able to learn more about the respective languages and cultures my fellow classmates were learning.  It was very interesting to see the existing patterns inherent in many languages and to see how cultural tendencies tend to overlap throughout many cultures.  I also enjoyed the required readings for the course.  While some of them were a bit technical and hard to understand (i.e. How the Brain Handles Language), I found it very helpful to learn about the theories underlying language studies and about the various strategies for approaching language learning.  The information provided through this texts are not common knowledge and I might not have sought out such information on my own if it were not for this course.            

            Overall, I am extremely pleased with the progress I made in SDLC 105.  I have accomplished the goals I stated in the beginning of this course.  I was able to practice my speaking as much as I wanted with my language partner, and gained more information about the culture that most likely would not have achieved without the structure provided by both SDLC 105 and 110.  In the process, I gained a wealth of knowledge about languages and cultures I previously had very little contact with.  Thank you Dr. Grove and Professor Scinicariello for your assistance in this process.

Please find attached a list of my "I can statements"

Thanks, 

Susan%20Jelanizada-what%20i%20can.docx

Shir and I were not able to meet during Week 13 because I was gone for Thanksgiving Break and with family for the whole week.  I was able to bring my notes and flashcards with me down to Disney and review my vocabulary with my brother.

Week 14:  Shir and I have gotten together many times to review Hebrew.  We are both working on a volunteer project together so as we drive to the various spots for interviews, we speak Hebrew.  In addition, we had a Shakshoukah party this past Friday night with Alex and Amit and a few other friends from Hillel.   While we cooked the Shakshoukah, we spoke in Hebrew and Shir would ask me for the various ingredients in Hebrew.  We had Israeli music in the background and it was a great time to have some hands on cultural experiences in Richmond.  Below are some pictures from our Shakshoukah party :)  

This post covers Weeks 11 and 13, since I do not meet with Mirwais during Week 12 as it was Thanksgiving.I spent some more time working with tenses in Dari. I reviewed my skills with the present tense and move along with other tenses. I worked with tenses in the past, future, past continuous and present continuous forms, in addition to the present. 

1. past - زمان گزشته

2. present - زمان حال

3. future - زمان آینده

4. past continuous - زمان گزشته خارى 

5. present continuous - زمان حال خارى  

Examples for each tense:

1. I ate food. - .من غزا خوردم

2. I am eating food. - .من غزا میخورم

3. I will eat food tomorrow. - .من فردا غزا میخورم

4. I was eating food. - .من غزا میخورم.

5. I am eating now. - .من حال غزا میخقرم

It is interesting to take note that the verb becomes irregular in the past continuous, when it is not irregular in the past. Another aspect of note with the past continuous is that its sentence structure is essentially the same as the present tense.

My final presentation on weddings in Pakistan and the concept of dowry in that culture is attached.

Susan J

Weddings in Pakistan

One of my learning goals for the semester was to get better at reading through material that was not too lengthy or too advanced for me to understand such as short stories, poems and proverbs. Luckily, during my meetings with my Mirwais I was exposed to all three. There was one particular short story that we read earlier in the semester that I had some challenge with. With this artifact I decided to type up the short story (this ended up taking a lot longer than I imagined),  so I could practice my typing skills in Dari, and then translate the story back into English. Here it is:

  در جستجوي دايناسور    

تولد سارا بود و او يك بازي جديد كامپيوتري بنام جستجوي دايناسور را هديه گرفته

است.

سارا به خودش گفت: اين خيلي عالي است، اين همان چيزي است كه مي خواستم.

سارا  تصميم گرفت، بازي جديدش را امتحان كند. او كامپيوتر را روشن كرد و سي دي را داخل آن گذاشت و به صفحه مانيتور نگاه كرد. علامت عجيبي روي صفحه ظاهر شد.     

سارا روي آن علامت كليك كرد و يكدفعه اتفاق عجيبي افتاد. نورررررررر

سارا پرسيد: من كجا هستم؟

پسركي كه كنارش ايستاده بود، گفت: توي بازي جستجوي دايناسور هستي. 

ما بايد استخوانهاي قديمي دايناسور را پيدا كنيم.

سارا يك استخوان طلائي كه در زير بوته ها پنهان بود را برداشت و گفت: يكي اينجاست. 

پسرك فرياد زد: واي، نه. تو نبايد استخوانهاي طلائي را برمي داشتي، حالا بايد مواظب دايناسور باشيم.

ناگهان آنها صدائي را از پشت سرشان شنيدند و زمين زير پايشان به لرزه در آمد. صداي نعره دايناسور آمد.  

سارا و پسرك دويدند اما دايناسور نزديكتر مي شد. آنها پشت يك بوته پنهان شدند.

سارا پرسيد اگر دايناسور ما را بگيرد چه مي شود. پسرك گفت: بايد  بازي را از اول شروع كنيم سارا فرياد زد، نگاه كن ، دايناسور اينجاست. ناگهان او دوباره همان علامت عجيب را كه قبلا روي كامپيوترش بود، را ديد. آنرا لمس كرد و دوباره...

نورررررررر

سارا در خانه اش، كنار كامپيوتر نشسته بود.او به بازي نگاه كرد و گفت: باي باي دايناسور، شايد من بازي ديگري بكنم.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Search of Dinosaurs

It was Sara’s birthday and she received a computer game called Searching for Dinosaurs as a gift.

Sara happily said, “This is excellent, this is what I wanted.”

Sara had the desire to play the game. She turned on the computer and placed the CD in and looked at the monitor. Something then appeared.

Sara clicked on a symbol and suddenly something occurred. Light

Sara asked herself, “Where am I?”

There was a boy next to her, who said, “You are in the game Searching for Dinosaurs.”

We must find the bones of dinosaurs.

Sara found a bone near some bushes, saying, “One is here.”

The boy yelled, “No. You took a gold bone from the dinosaur, now we have to be careful.”

They then heard a noise behind them while the ground was shaking. A dinosaur screamed.

Sarah and the boy ran but the dinosaur was coming closer. They ran into a bush.

Sarah asked if there was a way to escape the dinosaur. The boy answered, “Start the game over, again.” Sarah saw a symbol on the computer from before. She clicked it…

Light

At her house, Sarah was on the computer, looking at the game and said, “Bye, bye dinosaur, maybe I will play another time.”

Final%20Presentation.pdf

My final presentation on 4 festivals that play a major role in the state of Gujarat. Click the small comments tab within the PDF to see my comments throughout the presentation! Enjoy!

Artifact%204sm.pdf

Enjoy!

Shir and I met once this week, because of exams and scheduling conflicts.  However, we are making it up together at our Shakshoukah party that is happening on November 30.   We planned the entire party in Hebrew and planned what foods we were going to buy for the party.   It was great.  Also, we spoke to Sharon about getting some books in Hebrew that go over various concepts.   These books will be easy to read and comprehend, but also challenging and will be a good source of beginning reading. 

This week Shir and I met and we wrote down more vocabulary and we reviewed the concept of Time and Birthdays.   We spoke about what we did that past weekend and what we are going to do the next weekend.  Additionally, we finished reading the first page of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!! :) :) 

I found this article also very interesting.  I had read a similar article in High School for Spanish Class.   However, I think what was most interesting was the fact that bilingual speakers have lower levels of Dementia and Brain deterioration than Monolingual speakers.   I am working on my third language, I wonder what that means for me?

A great point that was brought up was that bilinguals are more aware of their surroundings and thus are able to be more aware of multiple cultural contexts.  When you are learning a language you have to become culturally aware of the language and you begin to perceive the subtleties within the culture so you can understand people better.   I used to not like learning another language, but all of the evidence shows that learning other languages is very beneficial not only for global context, but also mentally.  

I found this NY Times article very interesting.  There are so many languages out there and it is sad to think that some of those languages, cultures, and histories will be lost forever because we will not be able to bring them back.  This was a very inspirational article knowing that atleast a few languages have been saved from extinction.   Hebrew was once a semi-dead language.  We know how it is spoken, but it was never spoken in daily language because it was lost with the destruction of the Second Temple in the early First Century.   So when Hebrew became modernized in the 1960's it was considered to be revived from the dead.  I also have recently interviewed a friend of mine from the Former Soviet Union and she spoke to me during the Interview about how when she was younger she used to speak "Juli" (A mixed language of Russian, Arabic and Hebrew) with her family.   But now she doesn't remember much and she tries to get her mother to speak to her only in Juli to make sure she doesn't forget the language.   Going back to the article, I think it is great that the high School has now allowed the language of Siletz to be a recognized language to study.  It is a great opportunity for the students.  

I believe that this video, its themes, and the topics that were raised by both students and professionals will help me when I go and study abroad in Israel.  Although Israel is Modern Country and many Israeli speak English, I know that I will undergo a "culture shock" when I go there.  One of the main points of the video was to know that you are not alone.  I think that this is a great point to emphasize, because if international students feel alone then they will probably begin to feel alone and become depressed.  This is a cycle down and is quite the opposite of what the meaning of Study Abroad is meant for.  

  Another excellent thing that I really enjoyed about the video was all of the "firsts" that are so integrated into my daily life that I do not give them a second thought.   Additionally, I thought the study method differences of the academics was also a great point made because study methods around the countries are different.  For instance, my International friends this semester had a very hard time adjusting to the concept of homework and assignments being due weekly.  For me, this is quite natural, because I have had homework due all the time.  

One of the great tips I thought was provided by one of the students was to keep busy, getting a job to meet new people and not dwell on what you miss from home, and also plan your travels and goals while being abroad. International Adviser, Kritika Onsanit followed up on this concept with recommending getting active within clubs and organizations that are offered by the University.

Finally, I feel like this would be a great video to watch prior to a study abroad trip, because students need to be prepared for their world to be shaken when they go abroad.

The reading for this week was on Cultural Competence and the importance of understanding culture.   I think it is very important to understand various cultures, especially when you are going to be interacting with it.   For example, when I went to Peru for a Medical Missions Trip, we spent weeks talking about the cultural of the people and political climate of the country.  Many things come into play when talking about culture and trying to understand it.  However, some cultures are far removed from our American culture that we can hardly try to fathom, understand, or appreciate such a different culture without an open mind and spending time immersed in that culture with someone to guide you through the culture. As long as you leave behind all of your preconceived notions and go into a new culture with a clean slate, I think that you will be fine going into a new culture as long as you can follow those around you.  However, if you reserve your preconceived notions such as Genital Mutilation (as mentioned in the paper), and try to tell the people to stop then you are impending a culture of its cultural significance and tradition.  

Goal of the week: to learn vocabulary associated with the weather and the environment

Similar to last week, this week my language partners and I met to simple "talk about the weather". Although it is mainly warm in India with a rainy season, I felt it was necessary to learn all aspects of weather than the language can provide since the Gujarati diaspora has created communities of Gujarati people all over the world (including cold places)

Here are just a few of the words that I learned...

suriya

prakash: sunlight

aakash: sky

buhraav

pavan

vava johdv: storm

veejahri 

vadar nu gurgurat: thunder

vursathe

Culture and Language

There are many ways in which the phenomena of language and culture are intimately related. Both phenomena are unique to humans and have therefore been the subject of a great deal of anthropological, and sociological study.

H.D Brown in his book “principle of Language Learning” writes that sociocultural factors such as stereotyping, attitudes, second culture acquisitions, social distance, culture in classroom, and language thoughts, and culture are the important parts of learning new language. He also writes that Social factors may affect a language, depending on a person’s status in society. For example if you are poor and cannot afford an education or you were raised to believe schooling wasn't important or you grew up in a rural area where proper grammar wasn't encouraged, your way of speaking might be different or not as eloquent as opposed to someone of higher standing.

I think that there are many ways in which culture really does determine language, or at least certain facets thereof. For example, in different languages we notice that you cannot find a specific word, just because that word is not simply a part of that culture. In Afghanistan for example, there is no word for “dating” because there is nothing like “dating” in this culture. And therefore, people do not know what to call this word. Or the new generation that now know what this means to them they use the English name for it. In the same vein, there is no word for “depression” in Farsi just because people are not in this situation ever, they are either sad or happy and there is nothing like “depression”.

Another part, which I think is really interesting in language and culture, is the word restrictions. Our culture does, sometimes, restrict what we can think about efficiently in our own language. For example, some languages have only three-color terms equivalent to black, white, and red; a native speaker of this language would have a difficult time expressing the concept of "purple" efficiently.  

Linguistic differences are also often seen as the mark of another culture, and they very commonly create disagreement among neighboring peoples or even among different groups of the same nation For many people, language is not just the medium of culture but also is a part of culture. It is quite common for new language learners to a new country to retain their old customs and to speak their first language amongst fellow language speakers, even if all present are comfortable in their new language. This occurs because the native speakers are eager to preserve their own heritage, which includes not only customs and traditions but also language.  

Over all, I believe that culture and language have a very strong relationship. As second language learners we have to be careful about some common errors and generalization that people make about a new culture and new language.  As Brown concludes that “It appears possible to talk about anything in any language provided the speaker is willing to use some degree of circumlocution, every natural language provides both a language for talking about every other language, that is a metalanguage and an entirely adequate apparatus for making any kinds of observations that need to be made about the world”

My previous cultural posts have focused the role of religion in Afghanistan's past. Surely, it is a lot easier to write about the past for numerous reasons; the history has already occurred, I am able to gather stories and input from relatives who grew up and used to live in Afghanistan. However, the future of Afghanistan is pressing issue for the nation that will most likely impact the role of subjects such as  religion, education and government. It will also be interesting to see if Afghanistan continues the progressive trend it once embarked on; more of which can be read in my previous blog post. Therefore, I thought it would be worthwhile to spend time researching and discussing the future outlook for Afghanistan. 

One important situation to keep watch on is the United States' presence in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, the U.S. government has been working on strategies in Afghanistan after 2014; which is when Afghan forces are expected to takeover the U.S.-led effort. Current planning suggests retaining 10,000 U.S. troops within the nation (for reference, there are roughly 66,000 right now); more in regards to the U.S. strategy can be read in this New York Times article. It is difficult to predict what will happen, but it will be interesting to see how security in Afghanistan will be altered when the nation's military takes control of the situation. A tremendous issue for the Afghan military is that it lacks funding and does not have a large number of troops compared with other military forces stationed in the nation, such as the U.S. 

A lot will hinge on the success of Afghan forces after 2014. There is certainly a large amount of speculation over what exactly what might happen. In an article for Foreign Policy, Haseeb Humayoon remarked, "Alarmists about Afghanistan's future paint two likely scenarios: civil war, or the forceful return of the Taliban." Certainly, Humayoon highlights that some question whether the Afghan military will actually be able to keep Afghanistan safe. But one has to questions whether civil war or the Taliban serve a threat to Afghanistan. That said, Afghanistan is nation home to millions that have lived through both a civil war and have seen the rise of the Taliban. It would be shocking to see a population so affected by both experiences able to allow both to occur, yet again. 

Another important factor, also in 2014, is Afghanistan's presidential election; which the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan has set for April 5, 2014. Afghanistan will undergo a change in leadership as Hamid Karzai cannot run for reelection in accords with the nation's constitution. Two major issues of the last election, held in 2009, were security and fraud, and it is still difficult to tell whether those two issues will remain or not after five years time. With a change in military slated and elections upcoming, it will be interesting to see how things play out in Afghanistan in the coming years.

When I saw that this article "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter" on the syllabus, I was more than excited to read it because bilingualism always interested me. I am a psychology major and I am writing a research proposal on the effects of being bilingual versus monolingual. I agree with the article that it is true that being bilingual has many positive effects to the brain and its development. People who know more than one language seem to have a faster processing speed than a person who solely speaks one language. Brain development starts at a young age so learning an additional language can really the development and can improve and help intelligence. I learned to speak English when I came here in the 4th grade. It didn't seem too difficult of a task to learn English because I spent the majority of my time around my peers and teachers at school so I was getting constant re-enforcement. I am very happy to have become bilingual. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating though because the way my brain works is that when I am talking or reading, I translate everything into Mongolian and if I don't know what a certain words means in Mongolian then I can not fully understand the English meaning. This is also a good thing because then I am able to learn both languages more as time passes because I like to know what the word means in both languages. To conclude, knowing another language has definitely been beneficial and I am eager to learn more in my target language.