Language as a Literacy
At a young age, I was always fascinated with the fact that various cultures around the world had different lifestyles. I would ask my parents questions (often annoying them) when I wondered why a stranger in public wore different clothing or spoke differently than I did. “Weird” my young self always thought. “Why don’t they speak the same way I do or dress in a t-shirt and shorts?” My young self failed to understand the diversity a completely different culture can offer, especially in terms of their language. Everything from grammar, syntax, and even phonemes (the smallest unit of sound in a language) assemble to create a language that is just as unique as the people that speak the language. We’ve all grown up learning a language that is specific to where we were born or the type of family we were raised in. And then, of course, as we develop and our minds begin to grow more and more complex, we learn the different ways to construct our words, and sentences, which then develop into p