Does language define your identity?
<<Holding in stress the way they do, produced more toxins in the body, which has an adverse affect on the immune system, and your mental well being.>>
It's kinda funny, though, how the Japanese have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. The Japanese have the highest percentage of centenerians, I think.
It is sad, though. They do also have the one of the highest suicides. The currently modern culture in Japan is in a very depressing state...
Yes, and that high suicide rate is a direct result of emotional supression, which leads to chronic depression. But they do have the highest life expectancy in the world. I would think this is due to the fact that they drink a lot of green tea, which is famous for its anti-oxidant powers, and that they eat a lot of calcium rich greens like kelp. Soy which is abundant in Japanese cuisine, has been known to lower cholestorol and blood pressure. And fish, which is the Japanese' main source of animal protein, is rich in low fat protein, and omega fatty acids.
The Japanese seem to have a problem with the letter "R". How would a native Japanese person pronounce Valhalla, Tallahassee or Lolobrigida?...
Varara, Tarahasi, Rorobirigida?!...
The Japanese pronounce R much as the Spanish do. It's L that they have trouble with. And mostly it's that they have difficulty distinguishing between the two.
It's because they have no "L" sound in their language. You will never find an "L" sound in Japanese. In Many words they have borrowed from English, Portuguese, and other European languages, they have replaced the "l"s with "r"s. And they roll their "r"s, much as in Spanish.
'Zackly! I noticed when I lived there that in trying to write words in English and other western languages, the Japanese often assigned R's and L's sort of willy-nilly -- I once saw a globe with a continent marked "Austraria" and a caged mustelid in a pet stored labelled "Stliped Skunk".
I suppose when your language makes no special distinction between two particular sounds, or completely lacks one, it's hard for your ear to pick up on the differences. I've heard that Scandinavian languages, with all their different vowel sounds, often pose a probelm for English speakers who aren't used to having to make such subtle distinctions in various different types of A's.
Plus, when you flap your R's, they can kind of sound like a cross between an R, an L, and a D anyway, blurring that line even more. I remember a Mexican telling me something about what I heard as "elmal" and couldn't figure out at all, until I realized that it was just the way he said "el mar" (the sea). I was just hearing it wrong.
"I remember a Mexican telling me something about what I heard as "elmal" and couldn't figure out at all, until I realized that it was just the way he said "el mar" (the sea). I was just hearing it wrong."
A lot of Caribbean dialects of Spanish (also spoken in the Gulf/Caribbean coastal areas of the American continents) don't differentiate between /l/ and /r/, so maybe he actually did say el mal.
It sure sounded like it. Although he wasn't from a Caribbean-facing state. I noticed that he came close to lisping or even dropping his S's, too.
LAA : « So, in many ways more than one, I view France as a Latin country, that is the medium between Northern Europe and southern Europe. »
Et si maintenant tu te décidais à envisager la France pour ce qu'elle est : un pays très diversifié avec une longue histoire derrière lui mais aussi traversé par de profondes transformations ?
Does language define my identity? No, it does not. I'm an American who speaks English. I'm very familiar with Spanish and Italian, but I don't speak those languages fluently. I don't think that a nation is determined by the type of language that its people speak. A nation is determined by its values and ideals.
<< And mostly it's that they have difficulty distinguishing between the two. >>
My Dad can't hear the difference between "glass" and "grass". Ahaha...
" Does language define my identity? No, it does not. I'm an American who speaks English. I'm very familiar with Spanish and Italian, but I don't speak those languages fluently. I don't think that a nation is determined by the type of language that its people speak. A nation is determined by its values and ideals "
It is because you live in a place were knowing english is the norm to lead a life there, where english is the dominant lingua franca language.
Go to a country where the people have the same values than yours, the same physical aspect than yours, but speak a language that you don't understand and where the people can't communicate with you, I can assure you that you will not feel in your land, and you will feel to be of a different identity than theirs.
You also forget that the main tool to spread values is the language, trough the legal codes and the oral tradition of the education. the values and a lot of cultural phenomenons spread much more rapidely in countries with the same language than in others.
Actually, often the reverse is true, too -- you go to another country where people speak the same language as you, and marvel at how different their ideas, assumptions, and thought processes are! I felt that way as an American in England -- despite the fact that I could understand every word that they said, the English felt distinctly foreign to me.
Uriel, could you give some examples? I'm rather interested.