Sixth-graders Learn Music, Culture During Russian Residency

We started this semester with two days of intensive Turkish lessons. The past few weeks have flown by and we have picked up more and more Turkish words, as well as a greater understanding of the grammar structure. The Turkish language is incredible! But it is not only the Turkish language that surrounds us. Our time in Turkey has been filled with language: Turkish, French, Spanish, Arabic, Norwegian, Caribbean slang, and the shared language of English. It has all some how found its way into our studies and daily conversations. This has prompted discussions among our group of language and impromptu language lessons for those of us with little or no knowledge of French, Spanish, Arabic, Norwegian, Caribbean slang, and so on… As I write, Bailey is explaining to us the basics of the French language and its complexities. This has brought another form of bonding to our group, the sharing of languages.

During our times wandering through Istanbul’s markets and the Grand bazaar, we would be greeted with “hello”, “pretty lady”, “lady, lady”, and so on as we walked through the stalls and halls. Some shop owners would yell after us in many languages, hoping we would respond to German or Norwegian if we did not respond to English. A common trick of ours was to respond to their flirts and temptations in English, playing along with the “You dropped something pretty lady. Oh what could I have possibly dropped? My heart” lines or to say “Merhaba” (“hello” in Turkish) and walk on, “hayir, tesekkür” or “hayir, lütfen” (“no, thank you” and “no, please”, respectively) and giggle as their jaws dropped at our Turkish. Because so many of us share languages, four or five of us are fluent at a conversational level in Spanish, three of us have an understanding of Norwegian, and two of us can converse in French, we found ourselves often talking to each other in one of the shared languages. We were ableto haggle shop owners over their prices and then turn around and talk to each other in the shared language about what we really thought. It turned into a game of testing the Grand bazaar’s linguistic knowledge base by cycling through our languages, finding the shop owners who understood Spanish, those who spoke some Norwegian, and so on.

Every time we hear English on the streets of Istanbul, our ears perk up; we look at each other, look for the source, and smile. People in restaurants and at some of our hotels have started conversations with us over the shared language of English or as a means of improving on and practicing their own English. Language is a uniting force and the means by which we form bonds with others. The languages spoken by our group and the language we are surrounded by serve to unite us more and to encourage us to learn as much as we can about the Turkish language, about French, Spanish, Norwegian, and Caribbean slang, and about our shared language of English.

Signed, Anna