Urdu Community Engagement Contest S2 || Understanding the concept of Language by @weasell

Hi guys, it is great to see you guys back on another exciting week of the engagement contest. The Urdu community as come up with an interesting topic about language and this gives me an opportunity to share my insight on language so without any more future delay let get to it.

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What is meant by language? Define language in your own words.

I will define language as group of words which they is a unique way of combining these words together for the purpose of communication usually understood by a group of people in a community.

Understanding one another is a very important factor which has helped us human survive for centuries till now. All innovation or technological advancement is because we can talk to each other and understand what need to be done in bettering our lives.

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Language must be understood by at least two people for it to be considered as a means of communication. Most spoken language in the world right now was developed centuries ago and little changes has been made over the years. This shows the ingenuity of our forefather.

How language connects an individual to his family, glob or specific society?

Language is important and it create this sense which make you believe you belong with group of people (family) or an entire community because of the ability to be able to understand each other which form a tight bond with those people.

-Family: One of the major feature of family is to be able to understand each other better than any other person. This is due to the fact that you have spent more than with them and you know what they are about to say even before saying it with this much understanding, you feel closer with them than anywhere else.

-Society: A society is a group of people which mostly speak the same language which make interaction with one another much easier. Been able to communicate with group of people living in the same proximity, result to love and harmony between people of the society and this promote togetherness in the society. Business and other day to day interaction are also enhanced and this make the society grow.

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Which is your mother tongue? And which languages are spoken and understood in your home other than your money tongue?

My mother tongue is Yoruba language which are people from the south western part of Nigeria and it is among the three major languages in Nigeria. Other than Yoruba we also speak English and Hausa at home.

English is the universal language in Nigeria so because we were colonize by the British in 1884 so in order for everyone to understand each other, the British introduce its language as the accepted language in the whole county and some people are able to learn and speak English language fluently.
I was born and brought up in the Northern part of Nigeria (Zaria) where Hausa language is the dominate language. I learn to speak Hausa language at a young age and so do most of my family members.

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How many language do you know and how did you learn more than one language?

I am able to speak 4 languages and there are English, Yoruba, Hausa and Pidgin.

I learn English in school because it is the wildly accepted means of communication in the country. I also did English language as a subject throughout my school years.

-Yoruba: This was the first language I was able to understand due to it my mother tongue and been use my all member of the family to communicate with each other.

-Hausa: Been born where most people speak Hausa language, I was able to understand Hausa very quickly which makes me able to communicate with people around me.

Pidgin: This is the local English language most people who find English language difficult to speak. It may be hard for someone who do not go to school to speak good English so the Pidgin English was born and most people in the country find it easier than English language.

In which language did you study in school to university and which language do you prefer in the education system in your county and why?

English language is a compulsory subject throughout the country from primary school to higher institution. This improve the written as well as spoken skill of all student in the country.

I refer English language to any other language in the country because English is wildly spoken around the world and you can easily learn anything from the internet because it written in English language and this will help student in their research.

Although I will like to see a change in the early stage of education because children who are just learning about English language find it difficult to learn other subject with English language whereas, when you try to explain in they mother tongue which they are able to speak before coming to school, they find it much easier to understand.

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How one language or more than one language play an important role in the development of the society?

When people understand each other, this will promote many factors in that community. When they is chaos, it can be easily resolve through understanding and language play an important role in that aspect.

No society can grow when people living together cannot understand each other. With communication, business will thrive, people will be able to voice out their opinion on a particular subject and all problems are easily resolved.

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Almost everyone outside China cannot speak mandarin language but most people go to China and do business without understanding the local language. This is possible because of translation, we can download an app on our phone which can translate one language to another this makes language a very important factor in the development of any society.

How does culture relate to language?

Culture is the customs, arts, background, habits and lifestyle that is found in a particular group of people. Your behavior can be trace to your culture which may be how you dress, the way you talk, associate with people and even religious believe.

Culture and languages can be seen as a pair which cannot be separated because all culture is always associated with a unique language, this is the way people know how distinct a particular culture is. It is almost impossible to have one without the other so we might say for every culture, a unique language must be associated with it.

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Would you like to prefer writing in your own language at the time of writing posting on steemit, if yes why and if not why not?

No I wouldn’t like to write in my language. Even though, I can write in my language which is Yoruba I don’t think I will like to write an article on steemit in my native language. The reason is steemit is a learning platform as far as I am concern and I don’t know anyone who can also read and understand Yoruba language.

The point of communication is for the receiver to understand the message you are trying to pass on. Although, they are application which can translate any language to any preferred one but sometimes this translator are not always accurate and can send out the wrong message.

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If all my target audience understand Yoruba language, I will be happy to write in Yoruba but most times this is usually not the case.

If you want to promote your language in the world, how will you do it? and if you already done, then how much success have you achieved?

Promoting my language can be done in many different ways and some are;

-Education: This is the place people come to learn and they is no better place promote Yoruba language. As said early that children tend to understand better when explained to in their local dialect so I will write a proposal to the educational board requesting all children who understand Yoruba language should be taught in Yoruba language at early stage in school.

-Tourist Attraction: Yoruba is mostly spoken in the South-Western part of Nigeria. A good way to promote my language is to encourage people to visit that part of the country to see some fastival and know more about the heritage and culture.

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-Entertainment: There are a lot of movies and songs in Yoruba language so I will encourage people to watch and listen to those movies and music. I will also encourage the artist to collaborate with different artist around the world so different people around the world can listen to the beautiful sound of my language.

Conclusion

Language is very important to human development and we will probably still be in the Stone Age if not that we are about to understand each other. I have answered all to by best ability and hope it meet the minimum requirement.

Thanks you all for reading