TL;DR — Talk. Learn. Discover. Repeat. #11
Hey yall,
I hope you’ve all been doing great! On my side, I’ve been enjoying visiting Japan even more than I thought I would. To think that I’m leaving again in just two days is… let’s say difficult.
Still, I’m making the best of my time here and I hope to return once more.
Until then, I bought some Japanese reading (a magazine about Haiku and a novel from my favorite Japanese author, Higashino Keigo) so I’ll most certainly get back into studying a bit of Japanese through those!
Anyway, let’s dive in!
🗣️Talk languages
I've recently been slowly going through a book I purchased to study for the TOPIK exam. This book, all about the reading comprehension part, started with a bunch of explanations about how each question is arranged and what to look out for. The first few sections are all about something I hadn't studied in a while. What I call "structural keywords." These include conjunctions, and other linking words.1
These words, like in summary, after all, as previously said, so, etc. are crucial in language learning and yet, I realized I haven't studied them in Manmino at all, forgotten all of them in Mandarin, and didn't fully comprehend many Korean ones too.
Such keywords not only make understanding easier, they are also great tools to sound and, more importantly, feel more proficient in a language.
My method to study these is to find example sentences, then hang post-its of these keywords all around my house and try to create sentences using them to get corrections on platforms like Journaly and HiNative.
So why not turn to these in your next study session?
Here's a page all about common conjunctions in English that you could find equivalent in but I recommend finding language-specific lists like this one for Korean!
Let me know how you study them!
✍️ Learn from my experiences
I was never a really confident person. Hell, I still doubt myself daily and easily blame myself for everything in the world. Probably not the most healthy of mindsets.
My current state of mind, however, is in a much better place than I was before I started learning languages.
I used to see myself as barely capable of doing what others did with ease. After all, someone had to actually teach me how to run when I was a child and a lifelong disease (myasthenia) has also meant I’ve had to keep a straight face hiding it in daily life.
Today, while I still feel behind in many aspects, I’ve gained a level of self-respect and self-esteem higher than I ever thought I’d have.
Languages have given me this.
In Why Learning a Foreign Language is a Form of Self-Care and Personal Empowerment, I talked—among others—about how languages force us to take time for ourselves and how overcoming this challenge can boost our self-esteem.
🌎Discover new cultures
This week we’re turning to South America, home of many indigenous tribes with their own funerary customs.
The first one is apparently well-known2: the mummification of the Chinchorro people in Chile who actually mummified their dead 7,000 years ago!3
While this isn’t a current practice there, I still thought it deserved a mention.
Similarly well-known, the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos or Día de los Muertos) is a festive holiday in Mexico celebrated on November 1 and 2 during which the dead are celebrated. People mostly know it for the skull masks worn on this day by many but this celebration also includes other traditions such as eating the sweet bread known as Pan de muerto (“Bread of the dead”) at the gravesite or at a domestic altar, decorating altars and tombs with a yellow flower known as Tagetes erecta.
In Honduras, funerals are similar to most catholic funerals but something special happens one year and one day after the death: a large drum party. This is done in honor of the deceased after people save up for the first year of their loved one’s passing.
In the Caribbean Islands, finally, some Puerto Ricans turn to “standing funerals,” muerto parao funerals. During those, the deceased is placed as if living an activity they liked, such as playing video games, card games, or just sitting down. While this may seem weird, it’s said to give a chance for the family to celebrate the deceased’s life.
To close off this month of funeral customs, we’ll turn to Africa next week. Some parts will be fun, some will mention difficult topics.
🗺️Repeat with me (Lesser-Known Languages)
Monégasque - The dialect that became a country's official language
This week, we’re turning to a language I didn’t know existed even though I’ve been to the country: Monégasque, the language of Monaco.
A friend and colleague recently told me about it because her mother apparently used to speak the language. Looking into it, it turns out Monegasque is not exactly a language but rather a dialect of Ligurian, a Gallo-Italic language spoken nearby.4
The Republic of Genoa took over Monaco in 1191 and brought its vernacular language, the basis for what would become Monégasque later.5
Throughout the centuries that followed, Monégasque was impacted by foreign powers such as French and Italian mainly, but also Spanish and Catalan. France annexed Monaco in 1793 and restricted the use of other languages by 1805. While it was allowed again in 1814 when Monaco reestablished a sovereign principality, its education in schools was never really allowed again until 1976.
Nowadays, Monégasque is a compulsory subject in secondary education and an optional subject for the baccalaureate. There’s also a yearly competition.
While Monaco’s official language is French, Monégasque is considered a national language, and many street signs are in both languages. There are only a few true native speakers today even though the Monégasque ethnicity amounts to about 21% of Monaco’s population (ie. about 8,000 people).
The tonic accent in Monégasque is usually on the penultimate syllable but it can change and therefore needs to be indicated in the following cases:
If the accent should be on the antepenultimate syllable (the one before the last)
If two vowels follow each other (without being a diphthong):
meludía for melody
To distinguish monosyllable words with different meanings:
mà (“the evil”) but ma (“but”)
sà (“he knows”) but sa (“the salt”)
Monégasque is a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language like most other Romance languages.
Similarly to Italian (and contrary to French), it is a pro-drop language which means the subject of the sentence is often dropped and inferred from the verb’s conjugation:
Lesu ün libru. → I read a book.
Lesi ün libru. → You read a book. (singular)
Lesamu ün libru. → We read a book.
Monégasque has two genders (masculine and feminine). These are usually the same as in French and Italian but, in case French and Italian use a different gender for the same word, Monégasque uses the Italian gender.
The present tense is only used for the current and real present. It cannot be used to narrate a story or tell a historical fact. Instead, the past tense is used.
Talking about the past, contrary to all of its neighbors, Monégasque only has one past tense that covers the preterite, present perfect, and past perfect (also called pluperfect).
As a French person, this feels a bit restrictive to me but I suppose they used other tools to make the distinction clear in context.
Here are a few more sentences:
Üncantau: → Pleased to meet you.
Unde é a büveta? → Where is the bar?
Per pieijè. → Please.
Sci / Nun → Yes / No
Qü è? → Who is he?
Cosa di fáu? → What did you do? / What are you doing?
Nun sëmu munegaschi. → We are not Monegasque.
L'áiga è frida. → The water is cold.
If you’d like to learn Monegasque, you’ll probably need to go through learning one of the surrounding languages as there’s almost nothing in English.
I found a small barebone Memrise deck and this page with a few words but that’s pretty much it.
If you know French in particular, however, possibilities suddenly expand. The National Comittee for Monegasque Traditions (Cumitau Naçiunale d’ë Tradiçiue Munegasche) provides complete Grammar and Dictionary PDFs for free on their website, along with some free Monégasque-French texts. These aren’t the most up-to-date resources but they’re a good start.
I don't know the technical term for it but I hope the linguists among you will let me know! 😉
Although I had never heard of it until now
Or up to 2,000 years before the Egyptians did
I’ve actually been trying to avoid diving into dialects so far but my curiosity was picked so I’m making an exception this time.