TL;DR — Talk. Learn. Discover. Repeat. #12
Hey yall,
I hope you’ve been great! Me, I’ve been trying to recover from the amazing 10 days I spent in Japan. It’s now been 5 days and I’m getting there.
Japan was absolutely incredible. I loved every bit of my time there, even though some parts really made me nostalgic. Now that I’m back in Korea, though, I’ve been diving back into studying some Korean and reading more.
I’m also digging deeper into a TOPIK study book to learn more varied words and difficult grammar patterns. It’s interesting to study it without pressure!
This next month will be a busy one for work so I hope I recover quickly so I can combine work, study, and having a life outside to walk and visit during weekends. ❤️🔥
Alright, let’s dive in!
🗣️Talk languages
Ever since I came back from Japan last week, I’ve been able to start setting up my flat to feel like an actual home1. This includes getting reminders for my languages all around the apartment so I always have something to study/practice at arm’s length.
As a result, I now have a Korean book on every table I own:
A simple one about writing I can read without a dictionary by my bed
A complicated one about ChatGPT with my notebook next to it on my desk
A rather difficult novel (but about a movie I’ve seen before) on my low table.
I also have papers for random languages hung on every door available so I can have a swift look at them when I walk around.
This removes the friction I used to have whenever I wanted to study a bit but was too lazy to grab a book two feet away.2
What are you doing to reduce the friction between you and your language(s)? Let me know in the comments!
✍️ Learn from my experiences
In the 15 years I’ve been learning foreign languages, I’ve only taken 5 formal tests: TOEIC, IELTS, and three levels of the JLPT (43, N2, and N1). Well, I did take the N2 twice to be more precise.
Despite this, I have a pretty clear idea of my level because I regularly check on my level through a bunch of exercises I’ve found push myself to new heights.
That’s why I talked about the many ways to Test Your Language Proficiency Without Taking Formal Tests.
I got in detail for each about how to and what’s good/bad in the piece but if you only want the TL;DR, it’s:
Simulating real-life (conversations/monologue/writings)
Recording your own cringe voice
Back-and-forth translation (also known as bidirectional translation)
Transcription (or dictation exercise)
Mock tests without taking the real one
🌎Discover new cultures
This week, we’re turning to a few African funeral customs. Again, these may not be followed by everybody though.
In Africa, many follow a home ritual before the burial. This may include turning all pictures to face the wall and covering all mirrors, windows, and such surfaces so the dead can’t view themselves, and removing the bed from the person’s bedroom.
When it comes to removing the body to take them to the burial site (or morgue), it appears one custom was to dig a hole in the wall so the dead may not find their way home. To “confuse” them further, the path taken to the burial site was taken zigzagging too.
The mourning period lasts about a week, during which mourners can’t leave their houses, talk loudly, or laugh.
When it comes to the Zulu, they believe death is a sort of pollution that may affect close ones so they go through many rituals of purification and cleansing.
One way they get rid of this pollution is through slaughtering a goat. They may also, instead, use a plant known as the Umsuzwane to cleanse themselves, the dead, and the tools they use.
⚠️Warning potential trigger ⚠️
It appears they may also ask the brother of the deceased to have sexual intercourse with the widow to try to appease the spirit of the dead but it turns out this practice of “sexual cleansing” is not only closer to rape than anything else, it’s also a cause of STI transmission.
✅End of potential trigger
On a “lighter” note, mentioning funerary customs in Africa without mentioning the famous “coffin dance” meme feels somewhat wrong.
Indeed, Ghana does have a habit of holding more “upbeat” funerals but this is the meme actually started from a 2017 BBC report of one pallbearer company that proposed to dance while carrying the coffin.
Some Ghanaians also request custom caskets reflecting the deceased’s predominant occupation. In this article, a picture of a fish-shaped coffin appears for the funeral of a fisherman.
Well, well, I guess it’s time to turn to another topic so we’ll talk about festivals all about flowers next month! Get ready, there will be some beauties. 😍
🗺️Repeat with me (Lesser-Known Languages)
Plautdietsch - A German language spoken by small communities around the world
This week we’re turning to a special kind of German. One that didn’t even originate from Germany: Plautdietsch.
German actually has two main types: High German (the national language of Germany and Austria), and Low German. Many dialects exist as part of the Low German continuum and Plautdietsch is one of them.
To be more precise, Plautdietsch is a Low Prussian dialect of East Low German that had some Dutch influence in the 16th and 17th centuries. It originated from Vistula (currently in Poland).
The name itself means “flat German” and, while it’s written as Plattdütsch/Plattdüütsch or Plattdüütsk in general, the writing Plautdietsch only refers to this specific variant.
Another name for this language is Mennonite Low German. If you’re like me, you may have never seen the word Mennonites but it turns out they are a large community of Anabaptist Christians that fled what is today the Netherlands and Belgium to settle in the Vistula delta (Poland) in the 16th century, bringing their Dutch dialects along. Over time, they mixed it with East Low German dialects, therefore creating Plautdietsch as we know it.
Following oppression from Russia, they fled again all around the world which is why the Mennonite population of 2.13 million people is now spread with large communities ranging from the US to India, passing through Ethiopia, Indonesia, or Canada for example.
Today, while the language is spoken in most Mennonite communities to some extent, young generations aren’t keeping the language and prefer using the local language instead.
Plautdietsch is mostly a spoken language and with its community spread around the world, maintaining the language, in the long run, might be difficult. The absence of official orthography doesn’t help either.
When it comes to today’s vocabulary each community has absorbed words from their environments and from the other countries they passed through. In particular, Plautdietsch communities in Spanish-speaking countries have “Plautdietschfied” some words like Wratsch to mean “sandal” from the Mexican Spanish “huarache.”
Apparently, its grammar is quite similar to High German but one main difference arose through their separated evolution: Plautdietsch only has two cases now compared to the four found in today’s Standard German.
Alright, let’s see a few sentences then.
Goodemorje. → Good morning.
Audee. → Goodbye.
Oppwadaseehn, → See you again.
Leahrscht du Plautdietsch? → Are you learning Plautdiesch?
Jo, ekj leah Plautdietsch jearn. → Yes, I like to learn Plautdiesch.
Deitst du mi jleiche? → Do you like me?
Ekj si di goot. → I like you.
Kaunst du Dietsch? Nä, ekj kaun Dietsch nich. → Can you speak (do you know) German? No, I don’t speak German.
Maunche Lied wea sea oarm. → Many people were very poor.
Opp woona Strot es de Hotel? → On which street is the hotel?
If you want to learn more about it, I invite you to check the Wikipedia page as it’s a lot more complete than this essay, and to check the book Wi Leahre Plautdietsch: A Beginner's Guide to Mennonite Low German.
This Plautdietsch Lexicon might also come in handy.
I also invite you to watch the movie Silent Night which is in Plautdietsch and subtitled in English. I felt it was a bit slow but it’s still a rather good movie!
As someone who lived for a while with a Belgium person and has studied some German, I can clearly see both languages’ influence on Plautdietsch but it feels more Dutch than German.
This feeling might be caused by the use of ekj (closer to the Dutch ek than the German ich) or the double pp in opp which seems more Dutch to me.
Plautdiestsch is a fascinating language. I’m sure anyone really diving and learning it would be amazed at the different evolutions the language has gone through in each community around the world.
To think this language that originated in Europe can now be found in communities from Siberia to Latin America is incredible.
And talking about Latin America, that’s where we’ll turn to from next week onwards with a deep-dive into yet another fascinating language filled with suffixes.
As they say in Plautdiestch, bott lota! (Until later!)
Whether you’re curious about the term “home” or not, I highly encourage you to read
. This month, my good friend Joel is all about the nuances between house, home, and hearth. Fascinating reads!Unfortunately, that’s a true story… that has happened more times than I’d like!
Back when it only had four levels, so that’d be N5 now I guess?