You were the genius. The linguist. You were the brain. We just studied and got good grades. You were the une who understood it all.
The general ability of language to influence people has always been astounding. The number of lives changed every day by mere sentences. Even the lack thereof, silence, is a very powerful linguistic device which conveys some strange mythical strength. This power is harnessed and used to convey messages in speeches, books, songs, and even just commonplace conversation. Words having this much weight is a little strange for one to think about but all throughout history they have defined and separated humans from everything else.
Language plays an important role in one’s culture. Not only is it used for every day communication, it is also used to pass down stories in some cultures. In The Latehomecomer, the language difference between the Hmong and Americans causes problems for the Yang family. However, the Hmong language is very important to their people. They use it to pass down stories, which is an important part of their culture.
For Noah, the languages he learns make up for being different, “colored”, and gives him communities where he would otherwise not fit in. One day walking down the street, Noah hears some Zulu boys planning to mug him. He responds in their language, and the second he does, they laugh and tell him they thought he was a white boy. Noah reflects that they were ready to harm him, “until they felt we were part of the same tribe”, and then they “were cool”. He says it himself, that “language, even more than color, defines who you are to people” (55).
During the 18th century, the English started to expand their settlements and territories. At first they were settled in the parts that we call the middle, northern and southern colonies that involve for example New York, the Carolinas, Massachusetts, Delaware, etc. They made a fort on Lake Ontario that was for trading in 1727. It was called Oswego. The Ohio Company asked the English for land in Ohio so that they could make a permanent settlement there.
Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages.
The way people speak has to do with the community they grew up in, along with the phrases and accents that they use, which is affected by the region that an individual lives in. In America, there are many diverse dialects possibly because of the numerous cultures brought from the immigrants that came to America. As Walt Whitman said, “Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both free and compacted composition of all.” There are many different regions of American English. One of them is called the Pacific Southwest, a region that covers California.
Our identity is a place upon many attributes of a human being. Whether the person is someone who goes on promoting themselves to the world or not, and it shows how people communicate to others around them. Language is one of the main components that unveils the person’s identity in their everyday life, and they are many different ways to approach a person’s language. Relating to the article of Yiyun Li, “To Speak is to Blunder,” she knows two languages that has its positive and negative outcomes in her life. I to relate to her understanding of language, but a different view of what language means to me.
In his memoir, Noah claims, "Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says 'we're the same.' A language barrier says 'we're different'" (Noah 49). He uses his talent for languages to move through the world swiftly, appeasing those who he interacts with by talking to them in their own language.
“Divergent perceptions and absence of a common language of communication ... they fail to fathom each other’s feelings and likes and dislikes” (Priya). Miscommunication between people creates rifts and lays pretense for tension and dispassion. Without communication, people become impatient and disassociate. “They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English”(Tan 31).
It is because the United States has such a diverse population that its language has evolved to be so different to its European and Australian counterparts. To end that spread of diversity influence would be to homogenize the population. What progress could be wrought of such a sameness in every individual living in a shared space? None. The very notion of stifling ideas and collaboration on a grand scale should terrify anyone who looks toward future progress, and indeed anyone who values the individuality and creativity this country likes to tout as “the American way.”
While at a public speaking, Tan realized that she was using all these large words that her audience understood but her mother did not. “I was saying things like, “The intersection of memory upon imagination” and “There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus–and-thus…the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother” (Tan 58). Tan’s mother was in the room while Tan was giving the speech and that was when she realized that language could be a powerful tool that can connect each other in different ways. The English language can also bring people together who speak English but not in such a common way. “We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: “Not waste money that way” (Tan 58).
As a result language has changed over the years, there is a whole range of different words. Even modern slang
The Modern English language has a rich history, it develops and changes like many other world languages. The English language has mainly been influenced by Latin, Germanic and French over a period of two thousand years. The English Lexicon includes words from over 120 countries, however Latin, Germanic and Latin account approximately less than 30% each. The English language is second to none in the variety and amount of lexical words. The most penetrating influence on English in history is French during the Middle English period after the Norman conquests.
Standardization of the English Language English was not the original indigenous language of Britain. The first arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, the inhabitants of the country spoke Celtic languages. Yet English shows few dialects brought by the Germanic invaders. Nor was the subsequent growth of English within Britain a smooth or inevitable trajectory. After the Norman invasion, English was not the first language of the ruling classes.
