Language death

Language death occurs in unstable bilingual or multilingual speech communities as a result of language shift from a regressive minority language to a dominant majority language."

(Wolfgang Dressler, "Language Death." 1988) "A language is said to be dead when no one speaks it any more. It may continue to have existence in recorded form, of course--traditionally in writing, more recently as part of a sound or video archive (and it does in a sense 'live on' in this way)--but unless it has fluent speakers one would not talk of it as a 'living language.' . . .

"The effects of a dominant language vary markedly in different parts of the world, as do attitudes towards it. In Australia, the presence of English has, directly or indirectly, caused great linguistic devastation, with 90% of languages moribund. But English is not the language which is dominant throughout Latin America: if languages are dying there, it is not through any 'fault' of English. Moreover, the presence of a dominant language does not automatically result in a 90% extinction rate. Russian has long been dominant in the countries of the former USSR, but there the total destruction of local languages has been estimated to be only (sic) 50%."
(David Crystal, Language Death. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002)

Here in Kuwait we find that the youngest generations don't understand most of the old Kuwaiti idioms and words not just because it's not used anymore (because there still old people trying to pass them to the new generations but it is still not affective enough for remaining the language as it is), but because the new generation is replacing these idioms with other idioms mostly from the English language because of many reasons that includes the new wave of enrolling the children in English schools, and that is why we find our language is containing more word from English.

I will write some of the old Kuwaiti's words in Arabic and it's meaning and you can write more examples:

الجندل (الشندل) = خشب يستخدم لسقف الغرفة
خـّري مـّري = الدخول والخروج من غير إستئذان أو نظام
سِـنيار = مرافقة بعض بالمراكب ، وعادة تستخدم بالسفر أو الطريق الطويل بحري كان أو بري
عقر بقر = تقال هذه الكلمه للانسان المريض واللذي يريدون ممازحته مثال اشفيك طاقك عقر بقر يعني اشفيك حاشك مرض البقرة اللى انكسرت ريلها او امرضت وما قامت تقدر تقوم
كيري ميري = وهو لفظ يقوله القدماء يعنون به اللف والدوران فيقول البعض مثال انا ما عندي كيري ميري
بربس = صفة تطلق على الكلام عديم الفائدة وعلى العمل الذي لا فائدة ترجي من ورائه وعلى الشخص الذي لا اعتماد عليه مثال شغلكم بربس

World's Weirdest Weddings

The Wedding is the fairytale every girl dreams about. In your wedding, you must look like a princess, with your glamourous white dress, your make up and hair done, your loved ones gathered around you celebrating the begining of the rest of your life and your prince charming is what makes the story complete.

To some people that's not the case at all. I recieved an email the other day about the funniest and weirdest wedding customs around the world. It's amazing to see how the most demeaning, disgusting and hurtful actions to you, represent joy and happiness to other people!

In India, In a tribe called 'Toda', The bride to be must show loyalty, humiliation and total devotion to her future husband and that is by crawling on her hands and knees until she reaches him kneeling (while people are looking at her), then he puts his foot on her head to give her his blessing! (I'd rather live single forever if you ask me :)

Another tribe that lives South the Pacific Ocean has a weird wedding custom. On the wedding day, the bride and groom go the head of the tribe; who holds their heads and bangs them against eachother as hard as he can. And this makes the marriage official! (OuCH!)

The last tribe that I was shocked by is located in an island in the Pacific Ocean. In this tribe, the groom gives his wife a dowry based on her beauty. The more beautiful you are, the higher dowry you'll recieve. But the trick is that the dowry is 'a huge number of mice'. The prettier you are, the more mice you'll recieve! (Poor Ladies)

These are 3 examples out of many of the weirdest wedding customs that i read about.

At the end I just want to thank god for our beautiful, fun, elegant weddings and thanks to Islam that preserves women their dignity and honor and protects them from being subjected to such humiliation.

Hellow , How are you?
I want to talk about culture lecture and the question that Dr.Tayba asked us. She asked, whether the culture is learned or inherited? Defining culture is no easy task because it means many different things to many people. There are easily as many definitions of " culture " as there are cultures in the world. This is what it said in the hand out of Dr.Tayba about defining the culture. So, if there is no specific definition for the culture, how come we just say it is learned. I tried to give my opinion in percentage; of course, it is not accurate 100% because I did not make any studies about it. But, still I think it is the most logical answer for me. When I said my opinion to Dr. Tayba and my friends in the class, some agree with me and some are not. My answer was that culture is 80% learned and 20% inherited .Dr.Tayba's opinion was that culture is learned, because it acquired from the nature and she remind us from previous lecture, how the nature influence people. In this point I agree with her. But, still I insist that there is a little effect of inheritance in the culture. When Dr.Tayba asked me, what is your proof. I mentioned " Dr.Taha Husain " and how he was living in a countryside of Egypt and all his family around him were less education, not to mention his blindness. All these reasons gives me a conception that there is a part of inheritance on our life. By coincidence, while I was writing this paragraph, suddenly Kuwait TV on channel one shows in " Almoraselloon " program a short story about " Taha Husain " they talked about his house and his daily life it was marvelous. Finally, I want to say if culture is just leaned. What about people who have a willingness to create their own and others culture. Someone like " Taha Husain " or even the "profits".

Culture and Respect

The term culture refers to a state of intellectual development or manners. The social and political forces that influence the growth of a human being are defined as culture.
Each country in the world has its own culture, where there are a people in some land diffidently there is a culture, lifestyle, beliefs and values. The way we communicate with other people and treat them is one of the important elements in our culture. Even if we are changed our lifestyle, clothes, way of eating and living, we can't change our value and tradition of our culture.

While am searching in ''google'' I had read some impressive examples of respecting people in different countries, and it is reflect of their culture. Indian culture treats guests as god and serves them and takes care of them as if they are a part and parcel of the family itself. Even if they do not have something to eat, they do not leave their guests with hunger. The books of Indian culture contain a lessons which taught the respecting one another. According to Indians, elders are the blessing of any family and the bless come by touching their feet.

Another example of elders respect we can recognize it from Filipino culture. The younger members of family give a lot of respect to those who are older, even though if they are older than them in weeks or months. Also, the family to them the most important thing in life and they always support their family by working hard and send for them money.

In the end, as a human we have to respect all nationalities because we may find on them amazing values that we can learn through it, and be proud of our culture as the way it is.