The First Week of Engl 3360
Hello, and welcome to my blog for this semester! This is the first time I’ve done something like this, so I hope I improve with time. I look forward to seeing what I can learn on my own and from my classmate’s blog posts.
This lands us into the next part of my journal and into the depths of language studies. I chose to watch a YouTube video for this assignment by NativLang. The video I watched focused on the features that most other cultures contain that the English language is missing. The first feature the English language does not have access to is a reduplication. This is something that is found almost everywhere outside of Europe. Reduplication is when part of a word, or the whole word, is repeated to mean something else. For example, NativLang mentions that in Indonesian, the word saya, meaning me, can become saya-saya with reduplication, meaning oh, poor me.
Another aspect that the English language lacks is an informal and formal way to address “you.” NativLang explains how polite the language in India is. In Malayalam, the language consists of seven different ways to say “you” when addressing someone ranging from high status to a stranger. The English language also does not have adjectives that act like verbs. The Luo people of Kenya use the word ibor for “tall,” which they can also use as a verb. An example of the English language would be like using “she happies, or she doesn’t happy.”Yet another example we can take from other languages are yes-no questions. An easier way to ask questions would be to add a question-asking fragment to the end of the sentence or the word you are asking about.
NativLang goes on to mention how in English, we use “it” a lot when referring to the weather; for example, it snowed, or it’s cloudy. NativeLang suggests dropping the “it” in “it rains” as they do in Spanish and Italian, as they just use llueve and piove. The final example presented in the video is evidentials. These words can be used as auditory or visual evidence or indirect inference. The Sherpa language uses evidentials that tell you if the person speaking witnessed what they are talking about.
I am glad I watched this video and learned just how complex other languages could be, but at the same time, how they make communicating that much more straightforward. See you next assignment, thanks for reading!
"Features English is missing - but most other languages have" Youtube, uploaded by NativLang, 8 Nov. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iLpKFA1ADQ&t=229s Accessed 24 Jan. 2023.
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