Molding identity: Language, culture, and politics

                 Arabic             Hebrew

night             ל'לה               لَيْلَة
                  layla              layla

six               שש                سِتَّة
                  seita              shesh

house             ב'ת                بَيْت
                  bayt               bayit

first letter of alphabet
                  אלף                الُؤ
                  alif               aleph

rice              ארז                أرز
                  aroz               orez
cf. Spanish

"A language is a dialect with an army." 

(Lessow-Hurley,p. 29)
no citation given




MK Gross Spring 2008, EDUC 350
3 Hebrew icons from Dr. bar-Lev, SDSU
On-line Arabic dictionary



Languages that have changed alphabetic systems: Moldavian, Turkish


From wikipedia:

Moldavian was in Cyrillic until 1989 . Still used in break-away province.

Turkic languages used Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Latin, and other Asiatic systems.

The current 29-letter Turkish alphabet, used for the Turkish language, was established by the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, numbered 1353,[1] in Turkey on November 1, 1928, as a vital step in the cultural part of Atatürk's Reforms.

Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet.

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Using transference in second language acquisition

Using the following language-specific information, try reading the Hebrew word.

Direction: right to left

Sequence: some vowels are beneath the consonant; read the consonant first, then the vowel

Five sounds you will use:

ש = sh, as in shoe

ָ = a, as in awful

variable English pronounciation mirrors variable Hebrew pronounciation

ל = l, as in lamp

ו = o, as in home

ם = m, as in mouse

The reading skills you transferred include directionality, sequencing, and the ability to tell shapes and sounds apart. You can transfer these skills from the language you know to a new language!

More generally, transferance is a phenomenon where the knowledge, skills, and attitudes from one domain can be applied to other domains.

Based on page 62 of Lessow-Hurley, J. (1990). The foundations of dual language instruction. New York: Longman.

Thanks to Chen Levkovich's Hebrew keyboard and wikipedia's graphics .