Introductions

A Little About Me

I am studying applied linguistics at UCLA, and plan to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) upon completing my education.  I am drawn to language teaching because I love language learning and getting to know people from around the world.  Language may be humanity’s most valuable asset; it connects, bonds, identifies, sometimes blends and sometimes divides people.  The more we learn about language, the more we learn about mankind.  I have studied several languages, although I have not reached fluency in any other than my native tongue.  Although I fantasize about being fluent in another language, I believe there are many benefits to learning even just a little of several languages.  At the moment, I am excited to begin a new language-learning odyssey by teaching myself Isthmus Zapotec as part of my language studies at UCLA.

Why Isthmus Zapotec? 

In my state of California, there are many people whose mother-tongue or home language is an indigenous Mexican or Central American language.  As an English language teacher, I believe it is important for me to learn about the linguistic heritage of my students.  This is an important part of their identity.  My interest in Zapotec came from getting to know a young man from Oaxaca, Mexico http://jessicabruin.blogspot.com/2013/04/map-of-oaxaca-mexico.html about a year ago who spoke a Zapotec language.  Zapotec is a language family with 57 mutually unintelligible languages (P. Lewis, G. Simons & C. Fennig (Eds.), 2013) http://jessicabruin.blogspot.com/2013/04/language-maps.html.  I was overwhelmed with the task of selecting one of these languages until I came across an essay titled “The State of Zapotec Poetry: Can poetry save an endangered culture?” by Clare Sullivan (2011?) http://www.ou.edu/wlt/01_2012/essay-sullivan.html. Since the late nineteenth century, Zapotec poets from the isthmus have written in their language to defend their culture. Sullivan writes that this region has produced “one of the most prolific Mexican indigenous literatures of modern times.”  I was mesmerized by listening to the poetry of Natalia Toledo, Irma Pineda, and Víctor Terán http://www.ou.edu/wlt/01_2012/audio-zapotec.html.  This is the beautiful language that I want to learn. 

The odyssey begins:  In my next blog, I will lay out my language-learning plan for the next ten weeks.  I hope others will join me on this adventure, or at least share their experiences with Isthmus Zapotec or even other indigenous languages.  Also, feel free to correct me if I report incorrect information in this blog.  By the way, this is my very first blog.  How exciting!