The Linguists Response

How Can Language Empower or Oppress A Group of People?

Language is an important piece of society. Not only is our primary source of quick communication with others, it is also a cultural mark of who we are. Languages retain within them an identity, a culture, and a history. As some languages grow obsolete, a whole people's culture is put at risk of disappearing, as is the history and knowledge that lies within them. "The Linguists", a documentary filmed by two language specialists, is a video documentary that follows K. David Harrison and Gregory Anderson across the world to explore, examine, and preserve different regional languages that are growing weak or dying. Throughout this documentary, we follow the two as they encounter different people of varying regions. Each with their own remaining knowledge of their language and the last pieces of their knowledge held within its' dialect. They go to remote areas of places such as Siberia to learn more about Chulym.

In Siberia, with the help of a Siberian driver, they finally find someone who speaks Chulym, an almost forgotten language. After finally finding the first person with this form of speech, they struggle as she is a lady in her 90's whose hearing has decayed majorly. A theme seen a lot in "The Linguists" is that of time and change among others such as Identity culture, . As the years go by there is less and less need for certain languages; consequently, the children of the next generations become reluctant to learn this language and the amount of speakers dwindle. The linguist specialists struggle to find anyone younger in their search as these seniors are the only ones who have kept this language with them. Their identity is shown through their knowledge of Chulym. We learn that some are ashamed or very conservative towards their ability to speak Chulym as eventually, the fifty-something year old driver speaks up to the older lady. Thus surprising the specialists as he proceeds to speak fluent Chulym. Although, upon some questioning we learn that Chulym is a language of the outskirts, it is a distant language known as a language of the boonies. If you spoke it you may have been regarded as unintelligent or lower status; almost like AAVE in the United States. It has its ways pf restricting a society and it becomes oppression created by society and the relevance of a language.

On the other hand, it bonds people together. With such a little base of speakers, running into another speaker creates an instant connection. Nearing the end of the documentary, we see that the driver who the specialists call the "... youngest and most fluent speaker" becomes more and more familiar with them. We learn that though Chulym didn't have a written form, the driver had made his own using Russian letters; but sadly, he had thrown them away. They were thrown away due to the thought that they were offensive and inappropriate due to the reaction of Russian speakers. Against this blow to the Chulym language, the specialists gathered the village members and explained his story. Both those who understood Chulym and those who didn't gathered together, and the specialists proposed the concept of making a book around this story. It would be published as a community project as it was put together by this group. They were being empowered through the gift of a voice. 

Through watching this documentary it its' entirety, the audience learns that people can be oppressed heavily by their languages. We are shown that as certain languages rise as more dominant, others seem as though they've lost their importance. However, we also learn that these smaller languages hold much more importance within them than one might think. Languages give people in a community strength and unity as well as information about their history. It is a large piece of the building blocks of culture; even giving the people of a group a unique sense of unity that people only speaking a more prominent language may not understand.

MLK Paper 1 Practice

In front of a large and diverse audience filled with people eagerly listening to his awe-inspiring words, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech. His "I have a dream" speech was addressed to the people of America. Black and White people alike.

Eminem Interview

"Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism." Eminem is currently one of the most well-received rappers in the United States, and will forever remain as one of the most impact rappers of the 2000's as he has not only released many songs beloved by fans, but has felt the impact of issues such as racism and poverty growing up in an African American community of Detroit. One of our reporters was able to hold an interview in which Mr.Marshall has allowed us to leave an online transcript of his responses on our site.

Could the viewers hear some context behind yourself?

Well the name's Marshall Bruce Mathers III, or as most would know me, Eminem. I wasn't born there, but when I was around 13 years old, me n' my mom moved over to Detroit, where we lived in a black neighborhood; from what I remember there might've been a couple of other white houses too but not many. I started writing raps around 14 with a friend of mine named Mike and yeah.. that's where it started.

What effects did living in such a community have on your music?

Well, I think it's probably because of growing up on my block that I turned to hip-hop to begin with. Living in the hood with people of a different color who sorta turned into my brothers I grew up in a black community, so I adapted to their way of livin more than I did to the other communities in the states. The first rap song I heard was by Ice-T and I guess that opened my eyes and living where I did, it was something that helped me bond with the community and that really kept me on that track.

What kind of image do you think your music portrays?

To be honest, everyone can get what they want out of it, but really, all of my songs have got inspiration. They all have a message that I want to deliver whether it be about me, or my brothers, or our struggles or the world.

Your brothers?

My brothers. My brothers that've been through the same as me. Some of my songs let everyone else know about the issues we gotta deal with constantly. Rock Bottom was an example of that. It was my own perspective but it was pretty common, there weren't many jobs, not a lot of money, there was a lot of temptation to turn to crime to keep a living.

What about your language? 

What about it?

How do you feel your language is affected by your home?

Oh well... I don't speak like how you might expect when you first see me as you wouldn't think I came from a ghetto and I imagine some people who first heard my raps without knowing my own background my have called me "fake" to a tee. But it ain't. This is how I talk and it's how I was raised, and that's just how it be. Cause of that I speak like that when I rap too. It's a part of who I am and my background and that makes it important for how I write and sing my lyrics to show that aspect of me and my block.

-End Of Transcript-

Mouths Don't Do The Talking

I speak well. I speak well and yet can't speak to others. In foreign languages of course, but English too! Under many circumstances, a message is conveyed; but is that message understood?

When I was young, I'd always wanted to learn so many languages. The main reason I wanted to learn them was so I could talk to anyone I wanted. Others were one you'd think a child would have like the concept being cool or just sounding fun. I worked on it, it was a passion. As I pursued, I soon learned that there was more to knowing languages, there was more to speaking in general. I moved countries, and soon I learned I would need to be much more careful.

As I began school in Al Ain, there were a lot of changes I had to get used to. Chouiefat was a strict school, and something I wasn't used to was the student-teacher relationship. Most of the students were relatively bad eggs. Of course, there were exceptions here and there, but in my class, the majority of the boys weren't students you'd want to deal with, so I think teachers made the automatic assumption I was worse, to be on the safe side. This made it hell for me. To set the scene, I was around the point where I'd just turned 10, maybe it was late May, early June. That much isn't important, but what is important is that it meant that I was a sensitive child who had grown up in the states, where my teachers and classmates were all kind and friendly, to a different curriculum, where it seemed that every male student was supposed to be trouble and, it being so late in the year, I was expected to do well in the final exams which were just beginning as I arrived. The teachers were ruthless. I once got permission to go to the bathroom, and even though I don't remember being out that long, I returned to a million accusations. The teacher was furious with me and said I was skipping class and a student accused me of using my phone in the bathroom saying "Miss, I saw him take phone with him" in his thick local accent. The teacher obviously believed this and told me to give her my phone, I told her I didn't have one, which was true, I didn't own a phone. Angry with me for talking back and "lying" she threatened to call my parents and the principle and she then gave me a detention. I'm pretty sure 10 year old me cried, I was scared of almost all my teachers. As I'm writing this it just occurred to me that events like that weren't rare, and it gave me a sort of childhood trauma of school bathrooms that I think I might still have. Of course looking back on that now it's nothing but funny.

I tried finding ways to stop these issues, to avoid the issues I was constantly encountering I actually tried adapting my own Arabic accent to talk to them, I was self-conscious of my own accent. It made me different and at the time, the idea scared me. I didn't want to be different from everyone. Being different caused problems for me, it got me bullied and therefore, 10 year old Outh came to the conclusion that being different was bad. I began to speak differently and was scared that people would bully me if they saw my English results, as English was the only thing I could really do well in as the other classes were in areas never taught to me. This one boy, his name was Suhail, and it's safe to say he was my biggest problem. Sometimes I wish I'd punched him. He seemed to constantly bully me for no reason, he was the one who got me into that bathroom problem with the teacher and he seemed to follow me around the next years too. The next year I'd made a few good friends who sort of encouraged me to get out of being so afraid of my accent and all, but Suhail was a different story, it was like a I got in trouble for anything he did to me. Though, I always knew what he was up to, because he always spoke about me to his friends in Arabic, and I always understood, though I don't think I ever told him. 

Talking to a lot of the students was hard, a lot of them didn't understand my choice of words or my accent so a lot of my explanations relied on simple vocabulary and communicating with more than just my voice, but my actions as well. I let people know basic ideas through the way I acted. As time went on I let people like him know I wasn't dealing with him, without ever talking to him personally. Without really relying on my words, I told the surrounding people who I was. 

When I was young, I'd always wanted to learn so many languages. The main reason I wanted to learn them was so I could talk to anyone I wanted; but I also wanted to learn how to speak without words. To speak without speaking. Soon, I showed people that mouths don't do the talking.

Sucks Being The Same, Sucks Being Different

   

   "I wish I was strong like him", "I wish I could be as smart as him", well I wish we could be just slightly more proud of ourselves. People grow up always striving and wanting more. Almost everyone has heard as they've grown up that you should "always appreciate what you have" and that "you never appreciate how important something or someone is until you lose them." Unfortunately, we only apply to the second quote, because humans are just ignorant beings. 

   It don't make sense to me. You're raised learning that everyone is different and special and unique or whatever it is they feed you. Everyone is special, and no one is the same; yet, why is it that people always wish they were like others? Over 75% of people go through life wishing they were different, less than a half of that percentage are happy with their attributes. Even I've wished to be more like others it's natural. Scientifically speaking, the human species are a social organism. They group together almost like a school of fish, or a herd of cattle. The lot of us crave to be special, but its conflicted with our wanting to fit in with society.

That's what brings us to language. 

   There are somethings in which require some sort of similarity, such as languages. In most countries, students learn English from a young age because it's a dominant language, present throughout the world; therefore many are told they have to learn it in order to be successful or be able to communicate with others. Even if you're raised speaking English, a lot of you were probably told you're speaking the wrong English. What's that supposed to mean? Can you really just classify a whole entire dialect as incorrect? Assimilate it? There are many different Englishes just as there are many different languages. N' I don't need to speak in the fancy "correct" English for my thoughts to be understood. Had the first words of this text been something like "Y'all're all crazy self conscious and a'int so fonda bein different" It clearly would've had a different impression, maybe not even taken seriously. Why is it that we're suddenly uneducated if we don't use the perfect English? There isn't a perfect English at all, just people speaking their own ways and deciding to use one kind of dialect in order to fit in. 

   I've seen so many smart people, literal geniuses, and yes, they struggle to speak proper English, or English at all. That doesn't make them dumber, it just makes others ignorant towards their potential. Back in the 1860's, Chinese migrated to America and were hired for many jobs, they were seen as uneducated so they were hired more because they were cheaper. Yet, at the same time, they were more efficient than the average American. They weren't uneducated, no, they were far from it. They were hardworking, dedicated, and knew what they were doing, they were simply better workers than the American citizen; but they were called job thieves and stupid, and they didn't have the vocabulary to show otherwise.

   But we can prove otherwise

   Times are changing. They always are but now change and difference is being accepted, more than it ever has in the past. Now is the time we, both the children of this generations and the veterans of the last, take action to accept and acknowledge difference as a sign of experience. If someone is bilingual, they don't speak English and some other language that makes them less intelligent, they're sophisticated. Multilingualism is a sign of intelligence, it shows that you know more than just one way of speaking, and it's time that we accept that. Difference is an advancement, not a setback. Difference is unity, not a barrier. Difference is us, not them.

Kool A.D.'s Dandy Textual Analysis

Kool A.D., Uneducated Father or Literal Genius?

In his article, "How To Pay For A Baby", Kool A.D. uses different sorts of linguistics to convey his feelings towards the subject of having a baby. At first, he keeps his language somewhat simple, using phrases such as "Which sucks, because money is wild fake." Showing a recurring informal theme throughout the article. Kool A.D. discusses the costs of taking care of a baby while continuing to make use of this colloquial slang to communicate with the reader. "Asking money to make your stupid movie or s***** album you're asking that people help you keep a tiny human being alive until it's forced to be enslaved by capitalism, like the rest of us" Typically, a person using this sort of English is regarded as uneducated, but Kool is able to express advanced and smart ideas through this style of speech, turning the so called uneducated sociolect onto its' head. To add onto this display of awareness, he uses a break in his original dialect, a code switch, to use somewhat more formal words is his writing, while also keeping the informality used in the start; "Bottom line is that babies are money pits… when you have a kid the hustle sector of your brain expands" after giving his rant and warnings about money and the obstacles people might encounter as new parents, he changes the tone he uses while giving advice. The advice is more likely to stick with the reader when they realize this change of tone. Using a certain carefree dialect to set one mood through the article and then bringing a slightly more serious insight brings emphasis on what he says at that point. If this was planned it shows that Kool A.D. is even smarter than dialect lets on...

Who am I?

 You know how unprepared you are when you stub your toe? That's the amount of preparation I had to move to a new school. I'm entering a new school for my DP years in the full IB, so basically, I stubbed both my small toes; I wasn't ready to talk to anyone new either so I stubbed both my small toes twice without socks in my transition here. I can enjoy just about anything but it's hard to actually do said "anything" when you have trouble socializing with newer people.

  I'm Outh,

   On the topic of socialization, a big part of that is the language people speak, which is always a really cool concept when you realize that a school like Raha has people from all over the world, and yet all of them are able to talk to each other with a common language. Even without speaking you can pass on a message but being able to speak in English within a community that also acknowledges that language is an amazing thing and helps overcome a lot of social boundaries. Personally, I have a group of Korean friends that i enjoy being with, but also can't help but feel awkward as if I'm limiting how they speak since I can't understand their first language, and when they do speak in Korean, it's easy to feel left out because all of a sudden you have no clue what's going on.

What does Outh strive for?

   My goals are mainly to be able to not only do my best and show it through results, but to become a better student in general. I'm too quiet to speak to people or be heard well in my classes. This being both a new school and new year, I need to make a different path for myself. I want to try showing more confidence throughout the next two years and working on being louder. I'm sort of hoping I can improve that through classes and participation in general to get used to publicly speaking. Throughout the next two years I'll be sure to grow as much as I can