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Here Are the Jewish People

Western popular concepts of Jews that people here take as the extent of our tribe:

The reality:

Boys from the Jewish population of Yemen, which has been around for 2500 hundred years but has been slowly massacred over the past few generations.

The Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe in particular has a large and VERY long history with their Jewish Community)

The Abayudaya of Uganda, some of the great Jewish musicians

The Beta Israeli of Ethiopia

Igbo Jews of Nigeria

Cochin Jews of India 

Baghdadi Jews

Kaifeng Jews of China, who go back to the 7th or 8th century. Unfortunately, during the 20th century much of their culture was almost wiped out and the Kaifeng are currently working to rediscover their Jewish heritage and culture.

Jewish Children in Puerto Rico (Jews have been in Puerto Rico since the 15th century, many fleeing from the Inquisition)

The Beit Shalom Choir in Japan

Kosher comes in all colors, from all over the world, and in a variety cultural groups. We’re a small portion of the human population, but we have EVERYONE. We are all members of this tribe.

Because stereotypes are bullshit.

academia is 50% crying, 20% research, and 30% coming up with funny titles for every paper that you write

En Anglais, on ne dit pas “quatre vingt dix neuf”, on dit “ninety nine” qu'on pourrait traduire comme “Hurr durr, regardez mois, j'ai un système de numérotation fonctionnel” et je crois que c'est magnifique.

the cure to self-sabotage is to anchor yourself to the universal truth that you are worth it. you are worth the effort. you are worth the difficulty, you are worth the time, you are worth the consideration. there is never a point in your life, in time itself, that you are not worth it. return to this truth when you feel yourself slipping. do not let it go.

the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.

pudiste, puedes y podrás

HUGE news for researchers, writers and journalists! JSTOR drops paywall

JSTOR Makes Database Accessible to the Public

“The online academic resource has made over 6,000 ebooks and over 150 journals accessible without the need for an online login.”

“Online academic resource JSTOR has announced it is making its database accessible to the public, amid the widespread closure of universities across the world due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The database, frequently used by university students for research and essay work, announced on Twitter today that it has made over 6,000 ebooks and over 150 journals accessible without the need for an online login.

Previously, students needed a university login to access these resources.

This is the first time that the database has been openly accessible to non-subscribers.

The database is also working to expand on the amount of free content available online to students accessing the database through their subscribed universities.

In a statement on its website, JSTOR said that it has “an expanded set of content that is available to institutions where students have been displaced due to COVID-19 through June 30, 2020”.

“We are working with publishers to make more than 20,000 books available at no charge for JSTOR participating academic institutions and secondary schools that do not participate in our books program”, the statement said. “The number of books available through this effort is growing daily as more publishers opt in.”

Universities that previously only had access to some areas of JSTOR will also have unlimited access to the complete archives, at no extra cost.”

PLEASE SHARE - THIS IS A PRICELESS OPPORTUNITY FOR JOURNALISTS, RESEARCHERS, AND WRITERS!!!

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and to a lesser extent Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language. 

Some (Mexican) Spanish slang with a bit of explanations and examples!

No mames - this expression is used a lot. It literally means “do not suck”. We use no mames when something is unbelievable, something we are impressed about. It can also mean repulsion towards something Some sentences:

¡No mames que Juan besó a Mariana!

¡Wey, quita eso, no mames!

No mames, que verguenza, me caí por las escaleras enfrente de Roberto.

Wey - Another very famous expression. Is the equivalent of “dude”, just a little bit more rude. (I’d also recommend not saying it to everyone, just to people you know well, and not saying it around grown up adults, just in case). 

¡Quítate, wey! 

Wey, ¿a que no adivinas qué?

Wey, esto es serio, escúchame.

Morro -  Expression from the north of Mexico. It’s used to refer to children or young people. With the same meaning, there are other words: huerco, huerquillo, chamaco, chicuelo, plebe, the variation morrillo and maybe other words which I cannot remember. 

La morra esa de verdad que es insoportable.

¡Hey, morro, deja eso!

Pinche morrillo, pa’ menso no se estudia. 

Pinche - Very famouse expression. Is the equivalent of saying “fucking” when describing something; and as such, I wouldn’t recommend saying it around anyone, even though you may hear it everywhere around the country. (Specially with Sonora’s people, they tend to speak with swearwords).

¡Pero qué pinche calor!

Pinche Rebeca, me caga.

Toma tu pinche dinero. 

Me caga - It literally means something or somebody is taking a shit in you (Ha!). It means something/somebody is very, very annoying to you. With the same meaning exists the expression: me caga el palo. Both of these expressions can be used as noun or adjectives as cagapalo and cagante. As I’ve been saying with a lot of these expressions and probably will keep warning, do not use it around everyone. 

Como me caga esa pinche canción.

Rosalina es bien cagapalos, no te metas con ella. 

Tu no eres enfadoso, wey, eres cagante.

Mira que de verdad él me caga el palo, la neta.

Neta - this means that something is the truth, something that is right. And that’s it

La neta esta muy bonito.

¿Es neta eso?

Neta que ya ni al caso. 

Pendejo - rude word! Some mexicans may say it to their friends just as “dude”, but it actually means idiot or stupid. The variation pendejada is the equivalent to foolishness, some crap or idiocy.

¡No seas pendejo!

No me salgas con tu pendejada.

La morra esa la neta que es bien pendeja. 

NOTE: In Mexico, we’ve a culture of making fun of others, even of ourselves. A lot of Mexicans around the country won’t consider a lot of these words or expressions as rude, despite they are. That’s why I recommend to be a little cautious, just in case; yet, do not worry too much about this, Mexican culture is about being friendly and open to everyone, sometimes too friendly and too open, but that’s something to discuss later! 

Feel free to ask if any doubts <3