Language is susceptible to its surroundings and how it is portrayed to the community that is utilizing it. If a language is not represented or promoted enough, it will become endangered, as shown in the documentary ‘Fry’s Planet World.’ As the French government decided that French should be the only language taught in schools, the Southern French form of communication Occitane is now in a state of turmoil and is not as commonly used as it had been before.
A discovery that I had while watching this documentary was how the language you speak could influence the way that you think. As a result of languages having different sentence structures and ways of expressing opinions, the thoughts themselves have changed and are affected by the way you communicate. I have never before considered that this was an occurring phenomenon, and now I can keep it in mind when I interact with people from different cultures.
Another idea that this video proposed was that language was linked to the land and a particular group of individuals it sprung from. This thought is very controversial as I am sitting in Singapore and writing this blog post in English, and I am fairly confident that the English language did not originate from this part of the world. Nonetheless, there are many different dialects and forms of English spoken which respectively correspond to specific regions of the world.
This documentary helped me to consider different perspectives regarding how languages change depending on the environment and community that is making use of it.
I like how you explained your discoveries and learning from the documentary, I also like how you used current location to explain how land doesn’t represent a language. Its interesting that the video impacted your perspective when interacting with others from various cultures. Great job :))