Mango Languages

Greek Independence Day

Many times each day, through the course of our normal activities, we encounter some form of the phrase “…the Greeks invented that,” “The Greeks were the first to… “  or  “that’s derived from the Greek…” We need to remember that some items of significance came from sources other than the Greeks.

Did you know: the cathode ray tube, BBQ sauce, Botox, carpet cleaner, the twin cam motorcycle engine, and Quebec,  were all invented by Non-Greeks!  Yes!!  It’s true!!!!

Today is Greek Independence Day.  Modern Greece was born on March 25, 1821.  Wait, how can that be? – you are thinking….  Did they really invent everything in the last 200 years?  The answer is “no” but I will highlight a brief history of Greece.

Ancient Greek Civilizations began with the Minoan civilization in Crete and the Mycenaean Greeks circa 3300 BC.  Some accomplishments over the next 3000 years include: Democracy, The Parthenon, Olympics, The Hagia Sofia, Drama, Science, Trial by Jury, Greek Mythology, Philosophy, astrology, biology, mathematics, physics, Medicine, Fables, Comedy, Tragedy, and Satire. Men such as Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Homer, Hippocrates, Herodotus, and Aristotle have had lasting impact on our present day civilization.

Around 300 BC the Hellenistic period began.  This occurred when Alexander the Great left Greece and conquered 22,000 miles by foot over the next 8 years.  He died at the age of 32, undefeated in battle.  Though, his death resulted in his empire being split into 14 empires,  there was a tremendous spread of the Greek language, culture, and population.

The Byzantine period followed over the next 1000 years and spanned 35 present-day countries in Northern Africa, Southern Europe, and Western Asia. Greece fell to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th Century.  Over the next 300 years, Greeks held onto their culture through “secret schools” that were found underground and in caves.  Greeks had never given up hope of regaining their country and did not want to lose their history, language, or culture.

During the early 1800′s, a period of Philhellenism (Love of all things Greek) began.  Because of the Greek origin of so much of the West’s classical heritage, there was tremendous sympathy for the Greek cause throughout Europe. Many wealthy Americans and Western European aristocrats, such as the renowned poet George Gordon Lord Byron took up arms to join the Greek revolutionaries.  Many more also financed the revolution. People thought, “wouldn’t it be really cool if Greece was a country again.”

In 1821 Greece had declared war on Turkey and the fight for independence gained momentum.  Byron died with an army fighting for the Greek cause in 1824, but support continued to come in. But by 1830 the war had ended and Greece was free.  Thus modern day Greece was born on March 25, 1821.

Though modern day Greece has not risen to the level of power or influence of their ancestors, Greece did get credit for the first Allied victory of WWII.  After Greece had turned back Italy, Germany was forced to postpone battle with Russia to defeat Greece.  Following the battle, Winston Churchill had declared, “Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks.“  Soon after, Roosevelt stated, “Greece has set the example which every one of us must follow until the despoilers of freedom everywhere have been brought to their just doom.”

Today many members of modern society continue to show respect for the accomplishments of the Greek people.  This is never more evident than to look at the strong desire for people to display the colors of the Greek Flag – blue and white.  Hanes indicates that its most popular color for T-shirts is white.  Levis-Strauss indicates that its most popular color for jeans has consistently been – blue.

Tonal vs. Total Languages: Do You Know The Difference?

In obtaining language comprehension,  it is important to understand the total language.  What makes a total language?  For starters, a total language is very different from a tonal language.  A tonal language is one in which pitch is used as part of speech.  Examples include Mandarin and Vietnamese.   Vietnamese is a tonal language that has 6 tones: mid-level, high-rising, low-falling, low-falling-rising, high-rising broken, and low-falling broken.  In other words the word “ma” can mean: ghost, mother, but, tomb,  horse, or rice seed depending on the pitch of the “a.”

Vietnamese and Mandarin also share some of the characteristics of a total language.  A total language is one which has, and makes use of: words,  letters, sounds,  gerunds, grammar, participles,  phonemes,  characters, punctuation, words of different sizes, infinitives, subject agreements, irony, sentence structure, inflection, cases, names,  correct spelling, and origin.  Linguist purists  have long debated whether  all 19 elements  are necessary for a language to be attain the coveted “total language” designation.  Most concede that a language need only to encompass enough of these fundamental elements to make communication possible.

English is not a tonal language. Do you speak or know anyone who speaks any tonal languages?

Declining Nouns – My Attempt at Learning Linguist Stuff

Recently I have tasked myself with learning more about linguistics. This is most likely due to my desire to expand my global literacy, and has nothing to do with the great, fun, bright, energetic group of linguists that we employ. ☺

Following today’s work session I learned about cases.  “Cases?” you’re wondering.  “We know about cases: court cases, briefcases, containers…” No, I’m talking linguistics; I’m talking about the case system. If some of you are wondering “huh?” it’s because in English we don’t have a case system. Well no worries, because you’re about to learn.  (Editor’s note: English actually does have a case system for pronouns)

Without a doubt there are a lot of languages out there.  The general populous is aware that many languages have different letters and that most have different words.   But there are other differences.   Some languages have declining nouns.  These are nouns that change just like how some of our verbs change.  Nouns can change based on what they are doing, or what is being done to them.  Yes!  Verbs conjugate, and nouns decline.  Some sentences in some languages might involve the same noun with different declensions.  Sometimes you can even know the proper declension based on the case.  There are several cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, verbative, dative, etc., etc., etc.  Some languages have even more! vThese languages include Latin and some of the Romance languages and maybe even Romanian.

These languages (along with a handful of others) rely on the declining nouns to make sense in the same fashion that the English language relies on word order.  So while “the boy ate the dog” is clear to us based on the word order, some languages may extract the exact same meaning from “Boy dog ate” due to the amazing declining nouns.   I know…crazy stuff but very interesting!

What other declining noun examples can you think of?

Pet Sounds

Like many travelers, during trips to a foreign lands, I make it a point to pick up a new language., and usually, I return with a greater a understanding the spoken word. However, During a trip to Greece, my desire to pick up a new language was thwarted by my pre-existing proficiency. Thus I struggled with appeasing my language learning appetite….. Soon It occurred to me that, In Learning to speak a language, one usually strives to accomplish 2 goals.

1) To understand what is spoken

2) To orally communicate a thought to another.

However, a shortcoming of many language learners is that they tend to focus on what a fellow human being might say and disregard the language of many other inhabitants of that land.

Therefore, I focused on the communication of animals and thus both expanded and diversified my understanding of the Greek language.

I learned that in Greek a cat meow translates to “Niaow, and a dog ruff translates to “Gav”. But while a cat and dog from the states will be likely to successfully communicate, some animals may have more difficulty.

In Greece, a rooster says “Ko Ko Rico” when he wants to say cock-a-doodle doo. And a Pig that is used to saying oink oink, would have no idea how to translate “Gru Gru.”

Meanwhile a fish which is usually expressionless in the stated must cope with native fish could greet it with a “plats plats”.

So enriching was my new found vocabulary that as I was nearing the airport on my return, I didn’t hesitate when a bird said “Tsiou Tsiou” I knew he meant tweet tweet.

What other animal sounds do you know in another language?

My First

I didn’t really think anything as I returned from lunch pulled into the parking lot and saw Dave driving away.  Well, maybe I thought – “hmm he’s eating even later than me.”  Regardless, I would have totally forgotten about it had it not been for the [Dave OOTO] email sitting in my inbox.  Likewise, the email would have soon forgotten, had it not been for the sales fax that came in addressed to Dave.  Finally,  I would never have noticed the fax had it not been followed by Drew’s suggestion that I hit the gong for Dave.   That’s Right!  Today, at 2:30 I got the call.  Nervously (in my head) I quickly debated,  -Do I hit the gong with a series of subtle hits ala Ryan, multitude of powerful hits ala Marco, attention grabbing spectacle ala Bob….. Finally I decided short, sweet, and to the point, a single strong blow to the center.  Thanks Dave!

When is the last time you rang a gong?