I wanted to expand on some of the topics we discussed in
class on language; I would like to do this by raising this question, is
language a reflection of culture, or is culture a reflection of language?
Let us start with some basic linguistic background; there are
a finite number of sounds our mouths can produce, phonemes. Every language uses
a differing set of these phonemes to create their words, or phones. This is why
Chinese sounds vastly different from English. Along with sounding different most
languages are also structured differently grammatically and lexically, an
example being Spanish having the adjective come after the noun it describes, as
in el coche rojo (the red car). Or in many Asian languages theyre will be many different
words relating to family, where we would use just “brother” they will use many
variations of “brother” to describe a more in depth relation.
Is their family oriented culture affecting the language? Or
has their language influenced the culture? Language at its prime is used to
communicate an idea, abstraction. With that being true I believe that it then
would follow a group of likeminded persons capable of discussing their beliefs
will then group to one another. Due to either isolation or just the gradual
evolution languages go through, we end up with distinct languages that mimic
the ideals of the community at large.
Now here is where I believe this gets interesting, what
happens when a people adopt a new language, or morph an existing one into new
languages, such as English, Spanish, and French being romance languages have a
large relation to Latin? Does the culture that adopted the new language change
its ideals to match that of their new language? Do cultures that share related
languages, or simply have dialectal splits, share similar belief systems/morals?
Just curious as to
what others may think?
