Time, History, and Development of Acquiring Languages

1. Language Death

1.1. What most people do not think about regarding existing languages is that there were once some known langauages generations ago that have unfortunatley been lost in history, which brings me to the idea of "Language Death" From the chapter 6 reading called The Development and Evolution of Language," the idea is explained that "this occurs, obviously, when the last of its speaker dies. Language death has just as much a part of the evoltionary process as language expansion and language growth"(Plascencia pg 48).

1.2. Before a language vanishes from existance, there can be a moment when one language may not keep their footing due to lack of many people not speaking a different language due to the dominance of another language by the majority, which leads to the concept of "Engangered Languages." Answers of why this is happening can be explained from the Chapter 6 reading that "very small societies did not survive epidemic diseases." Another reason would be the "economic and cultural influence of large nation-states that encompass small tribal societies within their borders"(Plansencia pg 50).

1.3. When a language is not being well known or utilized, then it would be in a situation when a language becomes endangered, to the point where the language would cease to exist. One dominated language in many areas overshadows another language, which makes it very difficult to speak that one overshadowed language in an area with a dominated language. The sad reality is that many people can be judgemental to a person for speaking a language they are not familiar with, which was a struggle that Native Americans went through, which has happened in schools when you learn the history of the Native Americans when they were treated unfairly due to them speaking in their native language, instead of a language the majority of the school speaks.

1.4. I always prefer to speak English because thats the language I understand the most, but that does not mean I would dismiss other languages the people speak like my parents speak spanish and while I am not very well with that language, I can atleast understand sometimes what they are saying and they can understand my struggles and do not judge how broken my spanish can be. I would be welcoming to many people regarding what language they speak that they are most comfortable with.

2. Multilingualsim

2.1. One can develop the knowledge of speaking a language as you grow up and you stick with that one language. But if you can speak more than one language, then then you would develop the idea called bilingualism or trilingualism. From the chapter 7 reading called Acquiring Language(s), the chapter does state that both are the "most common." For a specific definition, bilingualism is explained as "the ability to speak two languages" and it is also mentioned to be "common throughut the world"(Plascencia pg 38). This proves that a high number of people have the ability to speak more than one language.

2.2. This idea is interesting to me becasue of how relatable this topic is to many people and myself when it comes having the ability speak more than one language. It is more noticeable when you have a foreign family who are immigrants that moved to a country like the United States. If one child is born with a family who are immigrants, then a child is more likely to be bilingual by learning both languages as the child grows up, which would refer to simultaneous bilingualism. Is it hard for me to remember how I was learning two languages at the same time while growing up. I only learned a few basic words when it comes to the spanish language from my parents, while I learned english from anything like either from T.V. or from school, which has established myself on how I spoke a language throughout my daily life.

2.3. If Bilingual if defined by speaking two languages, then trilingual would be the meaning of speaking three languages. I would never imagined the effort people go through in order to speak more than two languages. But if that is case, that is an amazing accomplishment people make and would also help bring some exposure to the languages they learned to speak for diversity purposes.

2.4. If you grew up with a foreign family, then you will most likely developed the sense of "simultaneous bilinguilism." This idea brought my attention in the chapter 7 reading that "a child that learns two languages at the same time"(Plascencia pg 38). This I can relate to because I develop the ability to speak both english and spanish since I was a kid growing up in a Mexican family.

3. Dialect

3.1. When you speak everyday, you will notice about why any particular person sound that way or pronounce a word that way. This brings us to dialect, which is explained in the reading called "Language In Variation And Languages in Contact" that "People may develop a particular way of saying something"(Plascencia pg 5). This idea would be depending on the person based on where they are or who you talk to.

3.2. Depending where you are or what group of people you socialize with, you will end up establishing that kind of norm with your speaking voice and your way of socializing with other people that matches on how they socialize.

3.3. While speaking is one them, you also have words that may be pronounced differently than how you normally pronounced them. The big example I have is the word sorry. When you socialize with any people in Canada, they pronounce the word sorry as "sore-ry."

3.4. It is an interesting learning experience about the difference of dialects within certain people. From my experience, I say that I have a normal speaking voice without any alternate pronunciations of an existing word. I guess I never developed anything anything special within my speaking skills as I grew up overtime.

4. Altering language

4.1. As time goes on, certain words have existed and utilized for many years. However, many exsiting words go through changes in order to make both existing words have easier and similar soundings regarding the different spelling. This brings me to the word "assimilation", which is explained in the chapter 8 reading that "The influence of one speech sound on the articulation of another so that both become similar or identical"(Plascencia pg 12). The example from the reading shows the word "ten bucks as tem bucks," which is persoanlly a no surprise for me because anyone with an accent are most likely going to say tem instead of ten. Even some people have a hard time saying certain words due to their accents.

4.2. While the purpose of assimilation is to have a same word meaning with different spelling, Dissimilation is the opposite. The chapter 8 reading backs it by stating "the influence of one speech sound on the articulation of another so that they become less alike"(Plascencia pg 13). The example shows the word "February as Febyuary." In all honesty, the r sound in February is pretty hard to hear when saying that particular word, which describes it as a silent r.

4.3. These studies perfectly describes the impotartance of history regarding language. On our normal days, we say many words without noticing its history of its changes certain words have gone through, which "metathesis" taught us about how the old enlglish language went through some changes for specific words for the modern times. It is a good thing that old english did not go through the negative impact of language death, which many languages have sadly been lost into history.

4.4. Words that make a huge difference goes through the process of "metathesis, which is described in the reading about "alternation in the normal sequence of linguistice elements"(Plascencia pg 13). Examples from the reading includes aks and ask. But the most interesting thing about this meaning is that the english language does go through some changes overtime, as backed by the reading by showing the example the words "healp and feold" changed to the words "help and fold." I never thought in my life of how some well known words used to have different spellings with a different pronunciation, which makes it hard to believe if the old style of english words have the same definition of the new english words.