Advanced Essay #2 Yafang Wu - Language, what's the impotance of it?

Writing this essay made me think a lot more about the different cultures that I am in. My goal for this essay was to prove that language is important to every culture, and when a language is lost, its true culture would be lost too. I am proud about the parts where I explained how a language can be translated and understand in a different language, but it would not have the same feels or express the same kind of emotions. I am also proud of the example that I had given. I need to work on my grammar, and make the transitions smoother.

Language is a very important aspect of a culture, or rather, a core piece of a culture. When you stop speaking the true language of a culture, you actually lose touch with that culture.

When talking about language and culture, we have to talk about what is the true language and the true culture. I am a Chinese American Immigrant. When it comes down to culture, here’s a lot that we need to talk about. The second you heard that I am a Chinese American Immigrant, you probably think that my very first language is Mandarin or Cantonese, right? That is not the case for me. In China, Cantonese is also called 粤语 (Yue language), it’s mainly spoken in 广东(Guangdong/Canton). That is not where I am from. I am from 福州 (Fuzhou), another port city, where we speak 福州话(Fuzhounese).

Like Anzaldua Gloria once stated in “How to tame a wild tongue”, “So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language.” (pg 59), language is a very important aspect of a culture.

Fuzhounese is my true native tones, it’s the first language that I had ever learnt. When I am speaking Fuzhounese, I am speaking my true, native tongues. The tones my parents growing up speaking, my grandparents, and their grandparents growing up speaking. The tone that have an ancient aroma to it. The tone that tells an ancient tale passing down from generation to generation. The tone of home and warmth.

In Fuzhou, specifically, many younger generations are immigrating to other countries, while Sichuanese are migrating to Fuzhou. What’s left of Fuzhou are mostly elderly, Sichuanese migrant worker, and those waiting to immigrate. With the Sichuanese migrants taking over Fuzhou, younger generations immigrating elsewhere, students being taught only Mandarin in Chinese school…… mostly only the older generation actually knows how to speak Fuzhounese. Many younger generation of Fuzhounese speaks Mandarin, or English if they live in the US, barely speaking much Fuzhounese at all, and they only even know couple words, just to communicate with their grandparents. My older brother is one of them.

Then there’s Mandarin. In China, everything in school are taught with Mandarin. But there’s more than just Mandarin or the well known Cantonese in China.

There are 56 known ethnic groups in China, with Han being the majority. Each ethnic group have their own language, some even speaks more than one language. But many of them are disappearing with the younger generations learning only Mandarin In school and other factors. Besides those, there are numerous dialects in China, they are disappearing too.

Mandarin is good and bad at same time. It unites 56 cultures together with a common language, and allow people from different regions of the country to communicate with each other. Yet at the same time, it is destroying the traditional cultures, and replacing them with whatever the Communist party wants.

Point is, if you cannot understand and speak a language, how could you understand the ancient literacies that had been passed down from that culture in the true way, whether it’s written down or passed down orally. And if you cannot speak it, how could you pass it down to someone else? Now you may say, “They could just translate it into another language that they understand.”

No. Maybe it can be translated and understand in a different language, but it would not have the same feels or express the same kind of emotion, as every culture are different. The feel and the emotion expressed could paint a picture that varies greatly as the language and culture differs.

For example, “一箫一剑走江湖，千古情仇酒一壶。”. 江湖 translates to “rivers and lakes”, but it’s actually the Wuxia/Kungfu world. What picture did you saw when you look at it?

This line of poem means “Live in the 江湖 world with a Xiao flute and a sword, loves and hates of thousand years of the ancient time all down with a pot of wine.”

When I look at “一箫一剑走江湖，千古情仇酒一壶。”, I see a picture of someone standing on the tip of a mountain, playing a sad yet relaxing song with the 箫 (Xiao flute), a sword is crossed diagonally on the back. The long hair which they never cut, and their long, flowy clothes, flows as the wind blows at it. The picture have a slight green tint to it. Then I see a picture of someone drink with a tiny cup, pouring 酒 (wine/liquor/sake) from one of those long necked vase. And eventually, start dumping liquid from a ceramic jar. The person is sitting on a bench, right in front of a square table brown with age and tales. One of their leg is up on the bench, with an arm resting on the knee of that leg, and the other dumping liquid into their mouth. This time, the picture have a slight brownish tint. Both are sad, yet seem carefree and beautiful in their own ways.

That is my true culture. Not the stereotypical Chinese with a long braid, who are actually 满族 (Manchu, one of the ethnic groups, who ruled China during Qing dynasty, when China actually opened up to the western world.), nor do I speak Cantonese. My culture is the Fuzhounese and Han culture. And now the American culture too.

But when it’s translated into another language, in this case English, there’s really not much emotion to it. “Live in the 江湖 (Wuxia/Kungfu) world with a Xiao flute and a sword, loves and hate of thousand years of the ancient time all down with a pot of wine.” Firstable, people would not know what exactly Wuxia/Kung Fu world would looks like, to actually understand it, it would take years. They probably would not know what Xiao flutes are either. They probably would also be really confused about what I mean by “loves and hate of thousand years of the ancient time”. But there’s really not a better way to explain “千古情仇”, there’s way more than just the meaning of each character or word. Each and every single of the characters have a different emotion, which you could not feel, unless that you understand that language well.

When a language is lost, the feels and the emotions that specific language express would be lost too, and people can no longer feel the true spirit of that language or the culture.

More infos:

Fuzhounese uses the same characters as Mandarin, but Fuzhounese words sometimes uses different character as Mandarin, and Fuzhounese have a different prounciation as Mandarin. For example, 眼睛 means eyes in Mandarin, and 目珠 means eyes in Fuzhounese.

After I did some research, I found that Fuzhounese is actually a combination of 古汉语, ancient Han language, and 古越语, ancient Yue language. 古越语 Ancient Yue language was spoken in Bai Yue 百越, which is mostly now a day Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and such.

Fuzhou also have a very similar culture compare to Taiwan. There’s only one strait between Fuzhou and Taiwan, it’s said that Fuzhou and Taiwan are one piece of land that was separate into two.

Fuzhou is famous for things like boat making, tea. 福州三宝 (three treasure of Fuzhou) are 油纸伞(oil paper umbrella), 角梳 (horn comb), 脱胎漆器 (a kind of China/ceramic, one of the three treasures of Chinese traditional crafts.)

Fuzhou is also called 榕城 (City of Ficus trees).