Language Affect the Way we Think
Languages are unique because of different cultural and social differences. They are taught as a child. Everyone has dialects that sounds different than others and that is because of the origin and social place they come from. Language can shape a person’s characteristics and thoughts.
Everyone in life has a person or a group of people that has influenced him or her the most. For me, it was my parents who influenced me to understand my language and culture. They taught me to speak my native language (Bangla) and encouraged me to learn more about it. Even though I know how to speak and understand Bangla, I did not know how to write or read it. However, I speak English very well because I have been living here for a very long time. I also speak other languages like Hindi and a little bit of Spanish.
Most of the language I learned was for a purpose. I learned how to read Arabic at the mosque so that I can read the Quran. I was taught Spanish at school because it was a required class, but either way I wanted to learn Spanish because many of my friends spoke Spanish and also I was eager to learn another language. I learned Hindi by watching Hindi movies; it was easier for me to understand Hindi because Bangla is almost similar to Hindi, just like Italian is almost similar to Spanish. Knowing many different languages can be helpful because it can help a person to communicate with others who do not speak the same language as them. By knowing different languages, it has helped me understand more about the culture and the society from that particular place.
It is true that a child learns faster than adults and that is because children brains develop after birth and they are able to catch everything and is influenced by the environment. So that is why it is harder for them to learn a new language when they get older. Once we are exposed to a language and a place it is easier for us to understand the language itself. I think that languages and the accents have changed over time because long time ago, people used old English like the language of Shakespeare. Language does change over time because many times new vocabulary is added to a dictionary, so languages do change within time.
Guy Deutscher mentions in his article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” about how language was created and how it can affect the way we think. I agree with Deutscher that language does change based on the grammar. Language definitely influences our ability to communicate, and sometimes the way we say something can totally be heard differently or mean something different to someone else.
I really agree with what you said about how learning different languages gives us the ability to not only understand a different tongue but also, cultures. I think it can really open up someone's mind in a social sense too.
ReplyDeleteYou also made an interesting point of how languages change like modern english and Shakespear. English might change a bit more in two hundred years... Who knows?
Hi Irani! In your Language Blog, you make three interesting hypothesis about language.
ReplyDelete1)Languages are unique because of social and cultural differences. This belief that languages are different due to social and cultural differences will most likely be covered in class # 17 in Chapter 19 “Language and social variation. This chapter discusses how certain “speech communities”, people who share the same set of norms and expectations about language. It addresses the fact that people who live in the same region, but have different educational, economical, or cultural backgrounds may share the same language, however, they speak different dialects of that particular language.
2)Language can shape a person’s characteristics and thoughts. This hypothesis might be addressed in class #18, in Chapter 20, “Language and culture”. More specifically, I believe that your hypothesis that language can influence our thoughts will be discussed on page 271, under Cognitive Categories.
3)Language evolves or changes over time. I believe that this hypothesis will be addressed during class #15, in Chapter 17 “Language history and change”, which investigates older languages and the ways they have evolved into modern languages, which is known as philology.