Mango Languages

Travel Tuesday: No Speak Americano

Obviously, as the crazed Mango fans that you all are, one of the most exciting parts of traveling to far off lands is the opportunity to utilize all that you have learned and practiced (from the comfort of your own home, using your MP3 player, or even on your iPhone). As someone who has lived abroad, the prospect of conversing with native speakers is just as terrifying as it is exhilarating. What if my accent is horrible? Do I use the formal or informal? Which verb tense do I use? These fears can prevent us from making the most of our travels and speaking the language of the land. It seems so easy to slip back into our English comfort zone. If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it’s DON’T DO IT!!! Some of my best travel experiences have occurred in countries where I only knew a few words (hello, thank you, goodbye, etc.). You don’t have to speak a language fluently to earn the respect of the locals. Merely making an effort with these simple greetings and gratitudes (no matter how horrible the accent) is enough to create a connection with someone.

Take it from Benny Lewis, a world traveler originally from Ireland who has a self-proclaimed “love affair with other countries and speaking foreign languages.” At the age of 21, Benny only spoke English. A mere 8 years later, he speaks English, French, Italian, Esperanto, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese and German fluently, and his newest venture is American Sign Language. His website chronicles his language learning and his travels, and he even has an awesome video where he uses all of the languages he speaks to give a tour of his apartment in Berlin. Impressionant, non?!

I actually discovered Benny’s site through a co-worker who thought it would be of interest to me, and she was right! One blog post I found particularly relevant is entitled “What will I talk about when my language level is so basic?” He brings up an awesome point that really makes you think about trying to use that foreign language you studied way back in high school: To be interesting, you have to be interested.

So what does this mean exactly? It means that to have a great conversation with someone, you don’t have to do all the talking. Crazy concept for us Americans, eh? Being able to ask questions and let someone else do the talking benefits you in two ways. Firstly, you really get to know the other person and discover the ways in which we, as humans, are all alike, despite our areas of origin. Also, it allows you to sit back and listen if you are not as comfortable with your speaking skills! He also addresses the common fear that locals will be upset if you speak the language incorrectly. While I can’t say this is 100% untrue, I can say that in my experience, it is almost NEVER the case. Definitely the exception and not the rule. Usually, they are thrilled that you are making an effort to preserve their language and culture.

I highly suggest checking out Benny’s site and taking a look around. He encompasses all that is Mango Languages and definitely lives out our core values. And next time you travel, I encourage you to use your language skills in any capacity that you can. I promise you will not be disappointed. If nothing else, at least be a little more understanding the next time someone from another country speaks to you in broken English. Pay it forward for the next time you are abroad and struggling while asking how to find the restroom.

Have you ever visited a country where you did not speak a word of the native language? How were you able to get around? Did you learn anything by the time you left?

Tartan Day!

Tartan Day, a holiday celebrating Scottish heritage, is held every year on the 6th of April.  This is the same date on which the Declaration of Arbroath, the declaration of Scottish Independence, was signed in 1320.

What is Tartan, you ask? Tartan is the pattern we call plaid in North America. If you go to Scotland, though, plaid only refers to a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder, or a blanket.

Tartan Day originally began as a single celebration in 1982, but didn’t pick up steam until around the mid-80′s, mostly in Canada. There, an annual “Gathering of the Clans” takes place on April 6th or the Sunday nearest to it on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. This includes pipes, drums, and dancing hosted by Canada’s oldest civilian pipe band.

The United States, with an estimated 6 million people who claim Scottish descent, has been a little late in the game. It wasn’t until 2004 that the National Capital Tartan Day Committee successfully lobbied the House of Representatives to designate April 6th of each year as National Tartan Day. This Resolution was adopted on March 9, 2005.

Do you have any Scottish friends? Be sure to wish them a happy Tartan Day!

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by Learning Irish… for Free!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

The Irish have been celebrating this holiday for over a thousand years. Today, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds in the United States, Canada and Australia as well as in other parts of the world.

Pubs will be open all day and night, there will be parades held across the country, and rivers will be dyed. From hunter to electric, the variety of shades of green will not disappoint today as people celebrate this Irish holiday.

History.com provides a ton of cool information about St. Patrick’s Day: everything from explanations of the symbols and traditions to recipes and places to celebrate across the country.  Check out these fascinating St. Patrick’s Day facts:

• Corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dish. In 2009, roughly 26.1 billion pounds of beef and 2.3 billion pounds of cabbage were produced in the United States.
• More than 100 St. Patrick’s Day parades are held across the United States. New York City and Boston are home to the largest celebrations.
• There are four places in the United States named after the shamrock, the floral emblem of Ireland: Mount Gay-Shamrock, WV; Shamrock, TX; Shamrock Lakes, IN; and Shamrock, OK.
• There are 36.9 million U.S. residents with Irish roots. This number is more than eight times the population of Ireland itself (4.5 million).
• There are approximately 122,000 current U.S. residents who were born in Ireland.
• Irish soda bread gets its name and distinctive character from the use of baking soda rather than yeast as a leavening agent.

As you are picking out your favorite green attire, selecting a pub to go to, and loading up on corned beef and cabbage, don’t forget to brush up on your Irish.

Mango Languages is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by providing a FREE Irish course.

This course will allow you to connect with your Irish traditions to the fullest. You’ll be able to ask the bartender for a refreshing and authentic Irish beverage, impress your friends with your knowledge of just who the heck St. Patrick is, what he did to deserve his own day, and engage in all sorts of practical St. Patrick’s Day conversations.

Click here to get your FREE Irish Course!

How do YOU celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick's Day

What’s Green, Plays the Bagpipes, and has around 300,000 legs?

There are over 36.5 million U.S. residents who claim Irish ancestry.  To put that in perspective, it’s almost nine times the population of Ireland itself, which is over four million people.  It’s no wonder that St. Patrick’s Day creates such a buzz all the way here in America!

Contrary to what you may think, St. Patrick’s Day began as a very traditional religious time of year, until March 17th, 1962, when the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade was conducted by Irish members of the English military through New York City.  This prompted the creation of many “Irish-Aid” societies, who began to host their own parades with bagpipes and drums.  In 1848, several societies all combined their parades to form one large New York City Parade, which has become the world’s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants (or 300,000 legs, for you riddle solvers).

Currently, more than 100 parades are held all across the U.S., and St. Patrick’s Day has even been celebrated in places like Singapore and Japan!  In Ireland itself, laws mandating that pubs be closed on March 17th lasted until the 1970′s. Beginning in 1995, the Irish government has begun using St. Patrick’s Day as a means to showcase itself to the world, hosting a huge multi-day festival, in which close to a million people participated in last year.

Irish Language – Part II

Why do I love Irish?

The answer to this question is “I don’t know.”

The reason why you like a language is very subjective, so I will just present some facts of Irish that I find fascinating, and which I learned after 4 lessons of Irish, thanks to our developer Colin Parmar and our editor Loig Cheveau.

• Irish employs some phonological processes that change the sounds at word boundaries to show the role of these words in the sentence.  So, while Tom is Tomás in Irish, when you want to call him, you say, “A Thomáis ” (“a” is like “o” in “O Lord”).  Another example: “a” (not the “a” mentioned above) means “his,” “her,” or “their” depending on the change that comes after it.

So:
a chat, a athair = his cat, his father
a cat, a hathair = her cat, her father
a gcat, a n-athair = their cat, their father

You can’t say what “a” means before you hear the following word.  The language plays games with our mind.

• There is no verb “to have” in Irish; when you want to say “I have a pen” you literally say, “a pen is at me.”  The same holds true for when you want to say that you speak a language: to say “I speak Irish” you say “Irish is at me.”
• The affirmative in Irish begins with the verb.  So, to say “Irish is at me” you say “Is Irish at me”; this is not a question in Irish.  How do you ask questions?  Well …
• There are two “to be’s.”  Similar to Spanish, but a bit different in use.  So, you have to know which “to be” to use to say “Is Irish at me.”  Moreover, there are different ways to form a question depending on which “to be” you use.  So, it’s not a simple matter to say “Is Irish at me.”
• Another source of fascination is the number system: to say “fifteen books” in Irish, you not only separate “five” from “teen” and put “books” in a sandwich, but you do not even say “books” – you say “book” – no plurals!  So “fifteen books” is the Irish equivalent of “five book teen.”  Does this sound like Arabic? Is there a connection between Irish and Arabic?  There is a theory … Ok, so you learned how to say “fifteen books”; can you now say “twelve boys”? You will probably say the Irish equivalent of “two boy teen” right?  Wrong!  For counting people there is a another whole set of numerals up to twelve.
• There are no words for “yes” or “no” in Irish.  If you want to say “yes” you repeat the verb of the question that you were asked.

For example:
Q: “Are you American?”
A: “Am”
And the full answer is: “Am, am American I” – Isn’t it tricky?

This is only a sample of what Irish is about. I’ve never been to Ireland, but with all this plus the insular inscription on road signs, I bet that at every corner in Ireland you’d expect to come face to face with some druid and his golden sickle on his way to cut the mistletoe.

Let’s also learn what is said on St. Patrick’s Day:
Éire go brágh! (transliteration – Eire goh brah, meaning – Ireland for ever!)

The Irish Language Part I – A bit of history

Irish is the language of Ireland.

A Short Linguistic History
Irish has two names: its official name in English is “Irish”; in Standard Irish the official name of the language is Gaeilge.  Irish belongs to the same greater language family as English – the Indo-European.  It is, however, more related to the Celts, who lived in England before the Germanic phyla conquered the island and English was developed.  To be more precise, it is the Celtic language spoken by the “brothers” of the Celts of England.  Together with Scottish Gaelic and Manx (an extinct language under a process of revival spoken on the Isle of Man), Irish forms the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages; the other branch is the Brythonic, which comprises Welsh, Breton, and Cornish (spoken in Cornwall, also under a process of revival).  Breton is spoken in an area in France, across the channel; it was brought there by the Celts of England.

A Short Historical Background
The Celtic polytheistic society left us a rich mythology with gods and goddesses, leprechauns, elves, and fairies.  In this religion, the predominant figure was the druid, or the knowledgeable priest.  Around 400 AD, St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland who is celebrated worldwide on March 17th, brought Christianity and the Latin alphabet to the island.  He is also said to have banished snakes from the country.  A variant of the Latin alphabet, the insular script (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_script — a majuscule script with rounded unjoined letters), was used in Ireland until quite recently and you can still see it in road signs and public notices everywhere in Ireland.

In the mid-16th to early 17th century, the British decided to colonize the Emerald Isle.  They confiscated land, gave it to settlers, banned Catholicism, and most significantly, they banned the Irish language from every aspect of everyday life.  Even the Irish, being a poor people, prompted their children to learn English, as they saw in it the only future for their offspring.  And thus began the so-called language-shift, the abandonment of one’s own native tongue and the adoption of a foreign language.

After the wars of colonization, 1/3 of the population was either dead or in exile.  A famine in 1740-41 hit a disproportionately high number of Irish speakers, and about 400,000 died and 150,000 emigrated.  Even worse was the Great Famine, due to a potato disease, in 1845-52 that left its indelible mark on the island and changed it forever. Its death toll is estimated to be between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 people.  An additional 1,000,000 people emigrated.  In short, the population of the island, and the number of Irish speakers, was greatly diminished.  Irish was prohibited until 1871, but even then the social stigma of speaking Irish hindered people from trying to revive their native tongue.

Irish today
Nowadays, Irish is spoken mainly in the Gaeltacht area in the west part of the island, and even there it is scattered. The rest of the population speaks a variant of English, called Hiberno-English, which is highly influenced by the grammar of Irish. The variants of Irish are all grouped in three major dialects: the Ulster dialect, spoken in the north, the Munster dialect, spoken in Kerry and Cork, and the Connacht dialect, spoken in Connemara and the Aran Islands (famous for their knitted handicrafts).  In an effort to unite these dialects and offer a simplified version of the language, Standard Irish was created, which is now taught at schools.  There have been several efforts to make people practice and learn Irish, and the issue is still open.