Introduction: Language and Life

Wow, this is actually the first time I've ever seen this screen... which is funny, because both my parents have blogs, so one might guess that I'm familiar with this "world of blogging" but I honestly don't read any blogs and I've never had any interest in all that stuff. But now school has forced me to write one... You know, I actually seriously doubt that I'll regret learning how to write a blog though. With the way the world is going this is likely to be a very useful skill sometime in the near future. And I know when I said I was "forced" to write a blog it might sound like this will be for me like some sort of tedious piece of homework, but I actually enjoy reflecting quite a lot (although not really writing it down :\ ) and it's so much less stressful to write in a casual language, so I doubt that the stuff I'll write will ever sound like essays. Although I'll forewarn you that my writings tend to be long... but I'll try my best to keep in concise! However, I will make a vow to not erase any ideas that I've already written down, so yes, there might be some stupid stuff that I should've erased, but I won't.

Anyways, let's get started with this thing. How? Welllllllllll... you'd probably want to know who I am?

   Name: Carlos Alejandro Páez González
   Age: 17
  ...........

Ok, I can't do this... I'm just gonna carry on in prose if you don't mind.

So, asides from what I've already said, I was born and raised in the South-American country known as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. I was born in the capital city (Caracas), which is quite infamous nowadays, by the way... When I was twelve I moved to Margarita Island, which is still Venezuela. Then shortly after turning 15 I moved here to the United Arab Emirates. One thing you should know about me is that I am a theater freak. Ever since I discovered theater when I was 13 I haven't been able to help but loving it, and I've even done a few plays with a local professional theater company called Resuscitation Theater. Asides from that obsession I guess you could say I like playing videogames (even though I don't really get to play much nowadays T^T ) and watching animé. I've also got a thing for Maths and Physics, but I doubt I'll talk too much about that on a Language blog.

I would talk about my dreams for the future as the guiding questions our teacher gave us say, but I just don't really feel like sharing that with the internet right now... maybe I'll do it later on, but for now let's just say I'm stuck between studying engineering and theatrical arts. I mean, it certainly is a difficult choice: do I follow my passion or should I just take the safe road? Well, regardless of the way my studies go I'm 100% sure of one thing: I want to be happy! Because what's the point of life if you aren't, right?

So now let's talk about what the blog is actually about... (dun, dun, dun) Language!!!

So I guess that Language and I go a long way back... I certainly have no idea when it was that we first met, but I'm about 99% sure that the first word I ever said was in Spanish. Ever since then me and Language have come a long way... heck, I'm writing a blog on it! So, asides from Spanish, English has also been in my life for as long as I can remember. The system in my first school was completely upside-down, so instead of teaching us how to speak Spanish they would teach us English and just let us learn Spanish at home. And I must say that it all worked. Although I wouldn't really be able to speak English as well if it wasn't for the magnificent power of the TV and videogames. And on that note, I'm also nearly fluent in French nowadays and I owe a lot of that to videogames as well, so now you know what to do next time you want to learn a language! Asides from that, I've learned some Arabic at school and because of my interactions with many Arabs throughout my life in this country I sometimes use Arabic expressions when I'm talking, but not that often though... I also know some Japanese, but (you guessed it!) that's all from watching animé, so it's not like I even understand it or anything, but it's fun to brag about it (regardless of how pathetic it might've sounded... ok, maybe it isn't that fun...)

So now, to start us off with this let's talk a bit about what language is anyways. In essence, language is any form of human communication. Simple right? well, it isn't, really. This would mean that language is practically every single action you carry out because they all communicate something, even if you have to think hard to figure it out. Like for example, the simple action of walking could be considered as language because you are communicating that you are trying to get to a different place to the one you were before. Not just that, but the pace at which you are walking can communicate other things as well, so it is actually more detailed than it seems. So in this sense, wouldn't everything created by humans be considered language? I mean, this latpop I'm typing on right now communicates the human desire for trying to create a portable object that would grant the same commodities of a computer, and it also communicates all the effort that was put into improving the original idea of a laptop, and it can also communicate certain facts about the cooperation between the companies Toshiba and Skull Candy, since the speakers on it are made by Skull Candy. But ok, I think this might be getting a bit out of hand. I can't really reach the intended conclusion for this post if we keep saying that stuff like the pillow under my head is language. (At least for now) Let's take a step back and say that language is a sort of logical system which allows us to communicate complex ideas in a practical way and, at least for now, let's say that language is a voluntary process in which the person communicating is completely aware of what he/she is saying. For now just forget all that nonsense I said about language before and let's just say that language is what we speak/write.

So, now that we've (sort of) defined language, let's talk a bit about what it's related to: culture. We can all definitely say that language has a crucial role in defining what the culture of certain populations is like (by the way, I'm just going to go with whatever definition of culture is in your heads right now and leave the other paragraph-long discussion about its definition for some other time). I mean, when you think about Chinese culture then something that might come to mind are those symbols which they write with which you probably don't understand if you don't speak Chinese. When you think about Russians, you probably picture them speaking Russian and this probably applies to any country you can think of. Language definitely is a crucial part of anyone's culture, to the point that you would think of it as soon as you start thinking about a specific culture, and I've discovered that, specially when you're out of your home country, humans are very often trying to cling to a specific identity; which would be their culture. So in this sense we can say that language isn't necessarily a thing we use only to communicate, but it is also a part of ourselves and of human nature itself. After all, humans are social animals, and that means (basically) that we interact in more complex ways than most animals between themselves, and whenever a society exists there will always be a culture linked to it; even if that culture is that of behaving like emotionless machines. So this means that culture is a natural part of any human society, and thus so is language. There's no escaping it until the day when we evolve into beings that don't need to communicate to survive and achieve our goals... which I doubt will happen as during any of our lifetimes.

Alright! I think that has been enough ranting for a night. That must have been enough to convince whoever's reading this that language is a very deep topic that can be really interesting to analyze. And I think it's getting too long anyways... so goodbye for now!

Oh, and I was asked to leave a picture that represented me. Well, this might be a bit specific to the stuff I'm into, but if you're interested in understanding this image then google "slowpoke" and "Sho Minamimoto" and after a bit of reading you might understand the meaning. Just bear in mind that I'm not as annoying as you might come to think from that little research...