Two separate topics. Two separate questions for you, my dear reader:
First, heritage speakers. Lucky Fatima said this word to me once - someone who grew up with a different language spoken in their home. In this blog post, it refers to someone who grew up speaking and.or writing, to varying degrees, Urdu in their home and who now, as adults, have decided to take a greater interest and attend classes to further their language skills. A few of my fellow students. One in particular, in fact. We'll call her Rude Girl (R.G. for short.)
Last week, back when I was trying my hand at different levels or Urdu class, I was back in the Urdu 1 class and assigned a part of a dialogue to speak out loud. It's very simple, just the first chapter of our book, so I am able to pronounce all or almost all of the words correctly already. The teacher rarely calls on me, I think because of this. Sometimes I'll need a little help with retroflex or aspirated letters, but mostly I'm allright. Towards the end of class, I got picked to speak the part of Mr. Aslam, and another girl in class was picked to speak for John, the doctor from London who can't find his hotel.
She also spoke really well. All her bohots were very bohot, no bohoots to be found. Nice short vowel sounds. (Or long? I could never remember which are which.) Toward the end of the dialogue we stopped talking about John's hotel and instead start talking about Bohri Bazar, a marketplace in central Karachi. R.G. pronounced Bohri Bazar just like I would have and our teacher told her to make her bazaar a little longer in the first vowel sound - baaaaazaar. Then we finished up, and the teacher asked if we had any questions. R.G. raised her hand and said "I have a question. I grew up speaking Urdu and we say bazar, not baaaazar." To which my Urdu teacher - nice and humble and soft spoken - hemmed a bit, hawed a bit, and told her that he thought the longer vowel sound was more correct.
My question to you is - are heritage speakers always this difficult to teach language to?
My comments to her would have been different. Like perhaps a "Why are you even in this class, if you're not open to receiving instruction and/or criticism in order to improve?" or maybe even a "Would you ask that of a teacher who was Pakistani and a native speaker?" Not that I would know what it's like for her at all. The only heritage language we spoke in my home growing up was Pig Latin. But even in studying pig latin would try not to be ain-pay in the utt-bay, if you know what I ean-may.
Now, on to code switching. It's when you go back and forth between two languages. UmmIbrahim brought it up in the comments to my last post. I have no opinion on the matter. I watched (a bit) of this talk about how code switching, where Tariq Rahman says something along the lines that code switching helps keep a language vibrant and most importantly, alive and in use rather than dying out. I can see his point. But my teacher, in his Youtube sensation video, makes a point of saying as few English words as he can, a purist perhaps. I can see the point of that too. And M's family is more the latter than the former, they talk about how beautiful Urdu is and try to use old, some say antiquated words. They (some) even rant (a bit) about the terrible state of contemporary Urdu in Pakistan and how there's no need for it to be littered with so many English words.
What do you think? About both questions!
First, heritage speakers. Lucky Fatima said this word to me once - someone who grew up with a different language spoken in their home. In this blog post, it refers to someone who grew up speaking and.or writing, to varying degrees, Urdu in their home and who now, as adults, have decided to take a greater interest and attend classes to further their language skills. A few of my fellow students. One in particular, in fact. We'll call her Rude Girl (R.G. for short.)
Last week, back when I was trying my hand at different levels or Urdu class, I was back in the Urdu 1 class and assigned a part of a dialogue to speak out loud. It's very simple, just the first chapter of our book, so I am able to pronounce all or almost all of the words correctly already. The teacher rarely calls on me, I think because of this. Sometimes I'll need a little help with retroflex or aspirated letters, but mostly I'm allright. Towards the end of class, I got picked to speak the part of Mr. Aslam, and another girl in class was picked to speak for John, the doctor from London who can't find his hotel.
She also spoke really well. All her bohots were very bohot, no bohoots to be found. Nice short vowel sounds. (Or long? I could never remember which are which.) Toward the end of the dialogue we stopped talking about John's hotel and instead start talking about Bohri Bazar, a marketplace in central Karachi. R.G. pronounced Bohri Bazar just like I would have and our teacher told her to make her bazaar a little longer in the first vowel sound - baaaaazaar. Then we finished up, and the teacher asked if we had any questions. R.G. raised her hand and said "I have a question. I grew up speaking Urdu and we say bazar, not baaaazar." To which my Urdu teacher - nice and humble and soft spoken - hemmed a bit, hawed a bit, and told her that he thought the longer vowel sound was more correct.
My question to you is - are heritage speakers always this difficult to teach language to?
My comments to her would have been different. Like perhaps a "Why are you even in this class, if you're not open to receiving instruction and/or criticism in order to improve?" or maybe even a "Would you ask that of a teacher who was Pakistani and a native speaker?" Not that I would know what it's like for her at all. The only heritage language we spoke in my home growing up was Pig Latin. But even in studying pig latin would try not to be ain-pay in the utt-bay, if you know what I ean-may.
Now, on to code switching. It's when you go back and forth between two languages. UmmIbrahim brought it up in the comments to my last post. I have no opinion on the matter. I watched (a bit) of this talk about how code switching, where Tariq Rahman says something along the lines that code switching helps keep a language vibrant and most importantly, alive and in use rather than dying out. I can see his point. But my teacher, in his Youtube sensation video, makes a point of saying as few English words as he can, a purist perhaps. I can see the point of that too. And M's family is more the latter than the former, they talk about how beautiful Urdu is and try to use old, some say antiquated words. They (some) even rant (a bit) about the terrible state of contemporary Urdu in Pakistan and how there's no need for it to be littered with so many English words.
What do you think? About both questions!
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