Key Concepts: Language and Global Language
The first picture above is of a Coca Cola bottle that my brother and I were served at a restaurant in Armenia. Written on the bottle is a saying that roughly translates in Armenian to the phrase: “kiss a stranger.” This photo represents the key concept of Language. Language is defined by Miller as “a form of communication that is based on a systematic set of learned symbols and signs shared among and passed on from generation to generation” (251). In this case, the language is Armenian, an indo-european language that has its own unique branch in the language tree. The individual letters on the bottle are the “symbols” that allowed me to make sense of this form of communication. My ability to read the writing on this bottle is representative of the power of languages in general. Specifically, I am only able to read the letters is because of my time spent learning the language in Armenian school, despite the fact that I never lived in Armenia during my childhood.
The second picture above is of my brother standing in front of the wallpaper at a gourmet Burger joint named Black Angus, located in the heart of Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The fact that there is English writing describing the quality of the restaurant’s meat ties into the concept of Global Language, which is defined as “a language spoken widely throughout the world and in diverse cultural contexts, often replacing indigenous languages” (Miller 267). In this case, although English is far from the official language of Armenia, an increasing western influence in the region has resulted in this occurrence, where the wallpaper of a restaurant is written only in English, disregarding the Armenian language completely. This occurrence thus indicates that more and more people are learning English in Armenia, as having these words written in a different language is not as problematic as it would have otherwise once been.
-Julie Thomasian