Can we learn the language of people without knowing their history?
In many colonized countries such as Australia and Canada one of the ways that indigenous/first people’s culture and history was disrupted or in some case erased was by taking children from their families, giving them settler names and not allowing them to speak in language. This has caused a disruption or disconnect from culture, histories and land that are as long as 10,000 or 60,000 years.
Language, speaking and communicating is a social act and therefore connected to people and their histories. Speaking a language isn’t a technical transaction. If you want to ‘speak’ with someone how do you do expect to do so respectfully if you have no idea of their cultural history?
Dear colleague.
"Can we learn the language of people without knowing their history?" -- You ask.
As I see it, a deep learning of a language is not posssible without knowing the history of the country in which the language is spoken as a native language. However, this is not the case when we do not want to completely master the focal
Let us suppose that you want to master of Portuguese language. The you have to be well acquainted with Portugal's history.
Best regards,
Orlando
In many colonized countries such as Australia and Canada one of the ways that indigenous/first people’s culture and history was disrupted or in some case erased was by taking children from their families, giving them settler names and not allowing them to speak in language. This has caused a disruption or disconnect from culture, histories and land that are as long as 10,000 or 60,000 years.
Language, speaking and communicating is a social act and therefore connected to people and their histories. Speaking a language isn’t a technical transaction. If you want to ‘speak’ with someone how do you do expect to do so respectfully if you have no idea of their cultural history?
Language is intimately tied to land and place and culture. These things form history, over time. To know a language is to know its history and its place in the world.
However, students in school can 'learn' parts of languages without being intimately acquainted with the places that the language grew out of. If this wasn't the case, languages would be useless as communicative tools between different cultural groups.
Ultimately, this question depends on your definition of "learn".
I guess it depends on the how deep and well you want to learn a language. For thorough knowledge of a language, it is important to pay attention to history and other cultural topics too.
Yes, for example, I speak English, but I have no knowledge of British history
Best Regards باقر فليح عبد الحسن
yes you are right because Im fluent at Korean language, went South Korea, know the history and tradition
A person can learn a language without learning the history of its people. A person can also learn the culture without learning the language of that culture. One is not a requisite for the other. Language a tool for communication. History is a recording of the people's past- - -including their culture.
It's a great thing to learn another language, but it's gets even better to know about the history/culture .
I think we need to be careful when we talk about "history" and "culture." I'm not sure they are necessarily the same. History may contribute to culture, but a culture is in the present, is dynamic and alive.
It is also important to think about which version of a people's history we read -- one written by them (in their own language), or one written by others. For instance, the history of India may be different from the perspective of Britain (perhaps a story of colonial empire building and mutiny) and the perspective of India (perhaps a story of invasion, suppression, and fighting for freedom).
[I'm not an expert on Indian or British history, so this example may be very broad and miss important details, but I think it illustrates my point.]
Roland Barthes noted that language as a first level sign system works by denotation, where codes are easily applied. But langugae also has associations for the users of that language (it may for example use a term for an object that no longer exists; it may use descriptors that we cannot tell whether they are positive or pejorative without context and culture). So the first level denotative system is overlain by a second level connotative system, the latter being necessary to fully function and communicate in the language (or local dialect/argot). this is embedded in culture which is embedded in history, although this history may not be the one taught in schools.
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