Unit 2

Unit 2. Culture, Language, and Education



Mind Map


Investigation about Oral Cultural Traditions 

Ø  Egypt Culture

The traditional musical is Zaffa celebrated at Egyptian weddings. The musicians play the bagpipe, flute, and drums, then the bride and groom enter to the ceremony. For Muslims, Islam is their style of life such as prayer at day, food, clothing, and way to be of each person. The language is Arabic, English, French, German, Nubia, Bereber, Domariviuven to North of the Cairo, and others.

Their culture is from their life, customs, and traditions of their existence. Their architecture had a religious style; the monuments are inspired in the existence the great beyond. Some of the most famous tales are Isis and the seven Scorpios, The eye of the sun, the Pharaoh Dyoser and the Swelling of the Nilo, the creation of the Universe, etc. The Egyptians wrote with small sharp cane wetted in specie of ink, prepared basis of water, rubber, and vegetable essences. As paper they used the stems of papyrus that grew on the edge of the Nilo River. 

The Egyptian writing was deciphered by Jean-François Champollion (French) in 1822. The key was provided for the discovery of the Roseta Stone in 1799 by Pierre-François Bouchard, when Napoleon Bonaparte made his expedition in the Nilo country. In the culture Egyptian also we find the hieroglyph, hieratical, and Demotic Writing. The contribution of the Egyptian culture to the world is through three essential ideas: the idea of the soul, the trial of the corpses, and the calendar.

Osiris´ Legend-Tale  

Osiris was old son of Nut the sky god, and Gueb the god of the Earth. He was the first king of Egypt until the day that tragedy fell on him. Seth envied to Osiris his brother. During a party Seth challenged to guests to enter in a chest and when Osiris goes into he closed it. Later, Seth threw the chest to the Nilo River taking control of the kingdom.

Isis the wife of Osiris found his corpse and hid it, but the evil Seth again empowered oh him, in this occasion cut him in fourteen pieces which dispersed on the current of the Nilo. Afterward of a large search, the god Isis recovered the pieces and patiently connected him. With the help of Anubis, they returned the life to Osiris, who transformed in the god of the death. Iris never could gather with her husband in the Earth. However, it had revenge. His son Horus the god with head of falcon faced to Seth in a terrible fight, beating and retook the kingdom of his father. (Cristina Carracedo- May  2001).   

          Ø  Indian Culture

Their most spoken languages are Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, etc. Also, they have a sacred language called The Pali used by Buda to spread its wisdom into the population. These languages are divided into 4 families; Dravidicas, Indo-Iranian, Austro-Asian, and Chinese-Tibetan.   

In 1967, a law established the Hindi and English like languages of work to services of the Indian Central Government. The cultural traditions of Indian are around II millennium A.C, where it composed the oldest book of Indian called “Rig-veda”(century XV A.C). In India, we find religions such as Hinduism, Sijismo, Buddhism, and Jainism. Their literary works were transmitted in an oral way. These works include texts of Sanskrit Literature such as Vedas, Epopee: Mahābhārata, and Rāmāyana the two most spread and oldest of Indian and new versions in Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.   The Rāmāyana is 24 thousand verses and tells the history of Rama (An incarnation or avatar of the Hindu god “Visnu”).    

The drama Abhijñānaśakuntalā (recognition of “Sakúntala” of the writer “Kalidás”). The Poetry as Mahākāvya; text of Sangam literature in old Tamil language. Before century XI, the literature began to express in different languages like Marathi, Bengali, and dialects as Hindi, Persa, and Urdu. In 1913, the poetry Bengali Rabindranath Tagore won the first Nobel award of Literature in Indian. Currently, there are two important awards in Indian; Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and the Jnanpith Award.

Other cultural traditions.

The dance has eight forms of classic dance with a narrative way of mythological elements. These express the inner beauty and divinity of man. It´s an art deliberate where each gesture search to transmit ideas and each facial expression the emotions. The theatre has a long history together with music and dance. Some plays the oldest are Shakuntala and Meghadoota. Indian is a multi-cultural and multi-religious society in which they celebrate several festivals and religious occurrences. They have four days nationals festive; Independence Day, Republic Day, the Gandhi Jayanti, and Labor Day.     

The Wedding of the Mouse- Tale

Once a sage was bathing in a river when a hawk dropped a mouse it was holding in its claws right onto his hands. Afraid that the hawk would pounce on the mouse if he left it alone, the sage transformed the small animal into a beautiful baby girl and took her home to his wife. Since the couple did not have a child of their own, they adopted the baby, thinking her to be a blessing from god.

When the girl reached a marriageable age, the sage and his wife decided to find the best husband for their daughter. So the proud father took his daughter to the Sun God. However, the girl refused to marry him. Similarly, the sage met with the King of Cloud, the Lord of Winds and the Lord of Mountains. But the daughter dismissed all of them, despite their mighty powers. Finally the Lord of Mountains suggested that the King of Mice was far superior to him, since the latter could bore hills all over him. When the sage’s daughter met the King of Mice, she immediately agreed to the union. Then the father transformed his daughter back to a female mouse and the happy couple got married.

This story is from Panchatantra, collection of fables from ancient India written in Sanskrit. The moral of the story is that our innate nature can never change, despite external appearances.

Ø  Bolivian Culture

In this country there are 36 different towns between indigenous and rural origins. Their clothes, customs, traditions, rites, and dance are according to the geographic zone of the country and they are preserved nowadays. They take in mind Nature, Man, and Pachamama (Earth mother) considered how a unity indivisible or all, there they live in harmony and community. 

Their languages more spoken are the Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, and Guarani.  Also, we find eight which are in extinction like Araona, Moseten, Movima, Sirionó, Yaminahua, Yuqui, Tapiete, and Machineri. In their festivals showing typical dances like “Caporales, La Diablada, Los Incas, Pujilay, Los Negritos, etc”., with a lot of colors and happiness in a strange mix between paganism and Catholicism. Their native musical instruments are small guitar”charango”, Indian flute “quena”, tarijeño violin, pututu, tamborcito, shepherd´s pipes “zampoñas”, matraca, and others. The painter more important is Leonardo Flores.

The Bolivian literature can divide into four Epochs: Pre-colonial, Colonial, Republican Epoch, and Epoch of 1900 until nowadays.  

Pre-Colonial period:

Quechua literature only exists beauty songs and oral legends, poetries, religious hymn, and heroic tales. The lyrical poetry was accompanied by music that is sing and gave tribute to the goddess, they sang to the sowings, the peace, the war, the drought, and annual parties.

Colonial period

Ludovico Bertonio made his books in Ayrama language and Spanish, some books are the grammatical art, the vocabulary of Ayrama language, the book of life, and miracles of our Sir. Jesus Christ. The Incan Vega´s Garcilazo written the play “the real comments” where he mentions the indigenous race dominated by the conqueror, also he emphasizes the love and pride of this town. The bishop Fray Domingo Santo Tomas was the first author to write the oldest book in Quechua called “Grammar or Art of the General language of Native Indian in Peru”. Some important works were written by Jose Manuel Cortez “Essay about the Bolivian History”; “History of Bolivian literature” by Enrique Finot, and “Bolivian Literature” by Fernando Diez of Medina.  In 1861 the first novel “The mysteries of Sucre” was written by Sebastian Dalence.   

Currently, there are a lot of authors with Nobel awards such as Gonzalo Lema, Ce Mendizabal, Tito Gutierrez, Ramon Rocha Monroy with “Potosi 1600”, and others.

Legend of Lake Titicaca

The Apus or gods of the mountains had put people in a fertile valley, where they prospered under their protection. Life was good and people were happy, things would stay that way forever as long as they obeyed the Apus’ only prohibition: that they never escalate the mountain where a sacred fire burned perpetually.

People obeyed, but the Devil was unhappy of seeing them do so, and persuaded them to compete among themselves to see who was courageous enough to defy the gods and escalate the forbidden mountain, and they all agreed to go fetch the sacred fire. Unfortunately, the Apus caught them midway, exterminated them, and sent pumas to eat those staying in the valley.

At the sight of the destruction of his creatures, Inti, the sun god, cried and cried for so long he inundated the valley. Only a couple survived this flood of tears in a reed boat. Once the flood passed over, they found themselves in the midst of a great lake, which had drowned the pumas sent by the Apus, turning them into stone statues. The couple then decided to call the lake Titicaca, which in their language means "lake of the stony pumas".

Conclusions about Unit 2

Ø The oral cultural traditions are the treasure and value of each culture that transmits from generation to generation. In these cultural traditions, we find the food, customs, legends, rituals, languages, clothes, ceremonies, tales, history, festivals, etc., which are different in each culture and show its cultural identity.    

Intercultural competence, Intercultural Understanding, and Ethnocultural Empathy are essential to develop a fine Intercultural Communicative Competence which permits the acculturation and exchange of knowledge between cultures: abroad culture with native culture. Also, reflecting on a critical way through comparison, contrast, and appreciation.  

 There are a lot of interests by scientists, anthropologists, archeologists to research ancient cultures, likewise the interest and motivation nowadays by the people to travel, know, visit, and learn about the cultures around the world.   


Conclusions of the course 

Language and Culture

 Through this work, we learn about several cultures and oral traditions of many countries, its literature, and awards received along with their history as well as the influence and significance of the language and its expressions inside of culture.

It was interesting to learn the relationship between language and culture which are connected and permit us to learn about several cultures and languages into an educational, professional, or touristic process.

On the other hand, we saw the importance that has the culture nowadays for its members can recover their traditions and for scientists, anthropologists as well. who investigate our ancestors looking to give knowing these cultures and all related to their history to can transmit that knowledge to the new generations. 


References 

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BoliviaBella.com. Bolivian Myths and Legends. Retrieved from https://www.boliviabella.com/bolivian-myths-and-legends.html
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