Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

You are what you speak!

Abdulaziz-Al-Jahdhami
Abdulaziz-Al-Jahdhami
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Languages and cultures are connected as usually a particular language points out to a specific group of people. However, when a person communicates in a language other than his or her mother tongue, it means that he or she is also interacting with another culture that speaks the language. One cannot understand a culture without accessing its language.


Therefore, when someone learns a new language, the language acquisition process does not only involve learning its alphabet, the word arrangement, sentence formation and the rules of grammar. In fact, this also extends to learning other common norms of a particular culture, including customs and behaviours. Generally, a language is very much deep-rooted in the culture.


There are studies indicating that people’s personalities are not stable as they would think. Rather people modify their behaviours, attitudes and even the thinking process depending on the society currently associated with. Hence, when bilinguals switch from one language to another, they simultaneously shift their personalities as well. Learning a new language is just like becoming another person who lives a new life for every language he or she speaks.


Case in a point, when one grows up in a specific society, it is predictable to learn the glances, gestures and changes in the tone of voice and other communication tools to emphasise or adjust what he or she wants to do or say. Normally, such specific communication techniques of one culture are being learned mostly by imitating and observing people of that culture. Learning a language is as easy as one could think. Language is not law; it is in fact like music; speech marks the jazz for one should first learn the basic rules, and then becomes good enough to improvise.


Consequently, as people always need each other in the day-to-day life necessities, they are obliged to interact with other cultures and learn other languages. This helps sustaining good communication and mutual understating between people and nations worldwide. For that reason, the lack of intercultural relations can lead to mistrust and misunderstanding, which could obstruct the common co-operation between human beings.


Intercultural understanding begins with individuals who have language abilities and who can thereby reflect one’s own nation, culture or traditions to other cultures. Every nation needs such individuals to preserve the global community. A competent person in other languages can bridge the gap between cultures, promote national security and world peace and successfully connect the world.


As Nelson Mandela stated, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”


On the other hand, learning a new language involves several difficulties along the way. The journey to multilingualism is like a ceaseless road trip with countless dead ends. Among these difficulties is mastering the sounds or phonemes that make the language and understand words arrangement rules. They also must acquire new vocabularies from the new language as well as practice them in dialogues. However, this would not be possible without learners communicating with people from the culture itself and understand the culture on its own terms.


Each language marks the road map of a culture; it tells you where its people come from and where they are going. Arabic, for instance, with its different dialects marks one of the most popular languages across the world. It is a language with a rich history and is spoken by almost 1.5 billion people worldwide and in Unesco’s 22 member states where Arabic is the official language of these countries. In addition to its native speakers, millions of other people know Arabic as a foreign language since it is the language of the Holy Quran.


Arabic has an impact on people all over the world as many countries today officially use the Arabic numerical system. Likewise, it is a key source of vocabulary for many other languages like Portuguese, Spanish, English, French Swahili and Uzbek. It is becoming the widely spoken language in the globe.


 


Abdulaziz Al Jahdhami


aljahdhami22@gmail.com


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