Language allows humans to share their experiences, communicate their thoughts, express their desires, and understand and conceive the concepts that constitutes the world they live in. Language is a tool to communicate with each other, as well as a carrier for people to pass on their culture. Simply saying, culture creates language and language shapes the culture.
If you know more than one languages, you probably find that there are terms in one language while there is not in another. Knowing both Chinese and English as my first and second language, I can give a simple example of the difference between Chinese and English.
English words for family members are simple and limited: “Grandfather”, “grandmother,” “cousin,” “aunt,” “uncle,” “nephew,” and “niece” are all. For them, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles for both mother’s side and father’s side are the same. On the other hand, Chinese has different words for maternal relatives and patrilineal family. For example, “爷爷”(ye ye), and “奶奶”(nai nai) are father’s parents, while “外公”(wai gong) and “外婆” (wai po) are mother’s parents; “堂兄妹”(tang xiong mei) are cousins from father’s relatives, while “表兄妹”(biao xiong mei) are cousins from mother’s relatives. The Chinese character “外” in the names of mother’s parents means outside. And the Chinese character “堂” in the name of cousins from father’s relatives has the meaning of house and family. This simple example reflect the Chinese traditional culture that only the patrilineal relatives are part of the family, the maternal relatives are “outsiders.” Through having different words for maternal and patrilineal relatives, Chinese people are told that patrilineal are more important than the maternal relatives as early as they start learning Chinese. And those terms also developed people’s mindset of valuing the male more than female from the old. This is how culture shaped the language and how language pass on the culture.
Furthermore, language which grow in a certain culture background has developed its own characteristic. From my personal experience, I feel that I am more comfortable to express emotion through English than in Chinese. I say “thank you” everyday and every time to driver, to professors, to people who hold the door for me. I feel normal to say that in English but I feel a little rear to say too many “thank you” in Chinese. Moreover, I say “I love you” to my family and friends a lot more frequently in English. If I say “I love you” in Chinese, I feel too official and shy. Therefore, we can see the different characteristics of Chinese and English. Chinese is implicit and repressed, while English is straightforward and expressive.
Language and culture are highly intertwined with each other.
