Language and Communication: Part Two

~ Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. ~ William Butler Yeats

Extracted from Wikimedia Commons: Language groups

     Language and Communication. By age four, most humans have developed an ability to communicate through oral language.  By age six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts. This ability fascinates me.As I learned about language and communication in Madam Ira's lecture, I am eager to share what I found through this reflection.

      What is communication? Imagine  "Communication" as a book. What does a book have? The outside part and inside part. The outside part is the cover. Can you see it now? The cover of "Communication" can be called "Body Language". Nevertheless, the inside part of a book are the pages. These pages can represent "Language" where on each page we can find "transmission", "grammar", "meaning" and "social use". Thus, the whole cover plus pages is what book is as body language and language is deriving communication to existence.

      Why there are transmission in language? It is the method we use to communicate. Either writing or speaking. Speaking means using our voice and speech to talk fluently. Humans have vocal cords. When it vibrates, it produce sounds. The sounds we make with our speech organ when we are talking must have meaning for it to be accepted as a language. 

      A proper definition of language is taught to us in the lecture. Language is a code that allows us to represents thoughts and ideas by means of sounds/letters. This code has complex symbols with internal structure which is rule-governed.

      For instance, let us examine this sentence. " I love you".  The red coloured word is the Subject of the sentence, whilst the purple coloured word is the Verb. lastly, the blue coloured word is the Object of sentence. Upon realising the existence of this particular internal structure, I went through to compare it with Malay and Korean language sentence structure. 

 I love you. (English)

Saya sayang awak. (Malay)

당신을 사랑합니다 (Korean)

(dangshin uhl saranghabnida) (I love you) 

In Korean, '당신을' can be omitted, since Koreans usually do not use the word 'you.' The following all mean "I love you" (without the 'you' pronoun) and are listed in order of decreasing formality. You can say any of them to someone you know well. The last one would be used most often to boyfriends, girlfriends and such. The second one would be said to parents, grandparents, or perhaps acquaintances one is in love with. :)

사랑합니다--saranghabnida
사랑해요-- saranghaeyo
사랑해--saranghae

      Noticed that Malay sentence structure is similar to English. Yet, when compared with Korean, it differs. Korean placed the Object in front. Other than the structure, the letters is also different.
      
       Chinese writing has very much influenced the Korean language.It was used widely during the Chinese occupation of northern Korea from 108 BC to 313 AD. By the 5th century AD, the Koreans were starting to write in Classical Chinese - the earliest known example of this dates from 414 AD. They later devised three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal (향찰/鄕札), Gukyeol (구결/口訣) and Idu (이두/吏讀). These systems were similar to those developed in Japan and were probably used as models by the Japanese. Interesting right? :)

       

      I am very much aspire to learn more about language and become an excellent language teacher soon. Remember the Maher Zain's song that is written both English and Malay  version. That is for us to examine.. :) 

       I have friends that loves language very much and I am glad to learn more with them. Part Two ends here. Till the then, chalga! ( Chalga in Korean means Take care.)

Thanks to the people who never give up with me in this 'long run' to succes :)

Highest gratitude to Allah s.w.t,

Mak and Ayah,

Kak Dilah & Kak Rabiah: the multi-lingual sisters that I am proud to call mine..