What Linguistic is?
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary linguistics is the study of human speech including the nature, structure, and development of language or of a language or group of languages.
Everything that anyone says has an interesting history behind it, or has a different meaning from one person to another. Do you know that a language can be a language without saying things that to us could be basic, like grammar, singular or plural, or has no tense (past, present or future). There are also some languages like Japanese & Korean that make their speakers to have a special tone that help them to sing better. There are also other languages that you need to be so specific when you speak, because the language itself is so specific. See, linguistics does not only affect the way we speak but also affects the way we think and perceive things. Therefore, the more languages you learn; the more flexible, more exposed you are & also you will have a different look of life than others, as you have more vocabulary and variation of meanings for one word.
Accents are the sounds of linguistics or a specific language, and some accents have different effect on people, just like when some sounds are considered disturbing to others, accents & tones can & may have different effects in the brain from one person to another. Also, some words are written exactly the same way, but pronounced differently from one person to another because of the different accents they have, the different countries they are from or even sometimes just because they live on different streets. Which does not make the pronunciation wrong, just makes it different. And as I always say: “Different just means that its different; something new to explore”.
“To have another language is to possess a second soul ”
- Charlemagne
Now, why did I choose to talk about linguistics? Simply because I feel that we do not know a lot about it, and we do not spend time in learning new words nowadays. In fact we are learning how to abbreviate words even more, use 2 or 3 letters instead of the word or phrases, for example: LOL, TYT, FR, TBH…etc. Also, we are using emojis to express our feelings, which in my opinion is not ideal or proper. See, feelings are more complex than a cute emoji, and most of the time emojis mean different from one person to another. Yes they are cute to use, and fun and sometimes they might express mildly a feeling that you do not want to label or communicate, but still, it is not the proper way to communicate. See your mind is programmed to learn languages, study also facial, body & sign expressions because they are all languages. So when you start taking away from your mind these wonderful abilities and replacing them with limited range of expressions or words, you are limiting yourself from exploring life, exploring & understanding yourself, your emotions, your thoughts, the world around you… and that’s when you start feeling stuck, lost or confused. Because in reality, each feeling or thought you have; you will find a word that expresses the thought or the emotion in every language, whether its arabic, french, english, spanish, italian… etc.
Why are tones & accents considered to be part of linguistics? As mentioned earlier, linguistics is the study of human speech. So the way you say something has a meaning of it’s own. It could be serious or it could be a joke, or could be mirroring… We all know that some words that mean completely different from one household to another, because these people grew up in different countries, churches, mosques, ashrams or schools! And you could tell from someone’s feedback’s (response) tone whether this word is acceptable to say in front of them or not…
As an arab woman from the Levant, I know that when someone tells me “In-shaa-allah” then its most probably a NO. Although, the word means “if god wills”, and my question would be something that really needs an answer of a YES or NO, the person does not need to check with god to get back to me. But from the tone that the person says the word, I would speculate the intention or the meaning of saying it.
Also the Language we use with ourselves affects our reality, the life we live and how we view the world. The more positive words we use, the more positively we will experience our life, the less positive words we know, the less positive our lives will be. See that’s why Linguistics are really important, they help you determine the life that you wan to live, the life you project into the world, the words to use when you want to process your feelings or someone’s feelings… sounds and tones can convey what someone is avoiding to honestly say, body language can really reveal someone’s mental state and so on… the more words you learn, the more powerful you are, the more languages you learn the different meanings each word has, and different languages have different grammar, and that also can affect your performance, for instance in English you say I WILL do… in German you say Today I Am DOING… so your mind unconsciously lets you do what needs to done without procrastination… nice yea!!
Hope you enjoyed this week’s topic…
Continue having a very nice day!
