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Languages and Healing | ||
Tags: Meditation | Psychology | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4669 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 11 09 November 2013 at 11:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's been an emotionally draining two weeks in the islands - a same-sex marriage
equality bill was before the legislature, and it brought out the meanness in some people. Sometimes languages can be healing, and can bring us together. I don't know if I've seen this covered on HTLAL. The Equality Bill just passed, Friday night at 10 pm. And when the cheers were done, the crowd spontaneously broke out into Hawai`i Aloha Even if most of us here can't speak Hawaiian, we all know the chorus: E hau'oli na 'opio o Hawai'i nei 'Oli e! 'Oli e! Mai na aheahe makani e pa mai nei Mau ke aloha, no Hawai'i Happy youth of Hawaii Rejoice! Rejoice! Gentle breezes blow Love always for Hawaii. We bond through music, of course, but I think we also bond through a shared language, and all the world that it encapsulates. Edited by kanewai on 09 November 2013 at 11:56am 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4669 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 2 of 11 09 November 2013 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Someone just sent this video ... a similar thing happened in New Zealand, but with a
Maori love song. Edited by kanewai on 09 November 2013 at 2:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4033 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 11 09 November 2013 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
Try as I might, I can't make sense of this thread. What point or thesis are you making and how would you have us discuss it? I have a few questions that I can't find answers to by reading your post: 1. Are you suggesting that some languages are more bondable or healing than others? 2. What sort of healing powers are you suggesting languages have? 3. If the healing power was a metaphor, what did you mean by it? (I know these are silly questions but I try to explain it below) I'm not trying to be asinine, I'm just confused. I'm thinking I'm not getting this because I just don't honestly think that simply pointing out that common language brings people together warrants a thread, it should be something very obvious to most people. That idea has been rampant since nationalism broke out, that a country should consist of the people who have the same culture and same language and heritage, and it is exactly why national anthems exist, for example. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| maucca Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4431 days ago 33 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French | Message 4 of 11 09 November 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why is that such a problem for you? :) It's just one thread. There must be hundreds of threads here which don't make sense to me and hundreds if not thousands of posts that I don't agree with, and I just ignore them. As for the healing effects of languages, this is probably not what the original poster had in mind, but I've just recently realized that studying languages (or a language in my case) has probably actually resulted in lower stress levels for me. When my thoughts are focused on the intricacies of the language I'm studying, I'm not thinking about stressful work-related matters, which would otherwise occupy my mind. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4033 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 11 09 November 2013 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Because I want to understand rather than just shrug my shoulders. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4669 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 11 09 November 2013 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Henkkles - It might be more of a psychological question than a language-learning
question, and it's still a half-formed idea on my part, so I don't know if I can express it well. But it struck me that, after a really rough two weeks, people turned to a second language to unite, and to express themselves. I think it ties in with the other thread about personalities and language. Some people talk about having a different persona in their second language. Maybe the same things work here, that a second language allows you to express things that would be too raw, or too emotional, in your native tongue. edit: I just saw your follow up questions. I don't think that some languages are "more healing" (though I hear a lot of new age crap like that), but more that a second language might offer a safe buffer, or a bit of emotional distance. Edited by kanewai on 10 November 2013 at 12:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6377 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 11 10 November 2013 at 12:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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The concept is obvious but it's nice to discuss specific experiences, both when languages unite people and when the healing only concerns one person.
For me toki pona is a great example because if you express your problem in it, you'll see how the same words can mean other things, so that you're not as alone as it seems. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5546 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 10 November 2013 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
It does for me. But I'd have a guess at those songs being ... at the same time exotic, but very familiar? Songs you learnt in nursery school, in elementary school, songs you learnt to understand as full of positive emotions, but which aren't full of different memories for different people, like christmas songs are for christian and non-christian kids who learnt them in school, like I did? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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