Cosmopolitanism Essay Example

Language is what influences our culture. It is more than just a means of communication. Language acts as a lens in the camera that helps us see the reality of things in life. When there is mono language in a certain society, it is a predisposing factor to culture death. Linguistic diversity, therefore, is necessary so that culture difference can replace monoculture. Language and culture are what contributes to cosmopolitanism that is a situation where different individuals from different places or nation form mutual relationships of mutual respect to their language and culture. All human being belong to a single community based on shared morality. To justify or disapprove the claim, the need to juxtapose the issues and ideas in the two essay on Death By Monoculture By Stephen Pax Leonard And A Travelers Tale By Sir Richard Burton Is Necessary.

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In the article written on Death by Monoculture written by Stephen Pax Leonard, the issue of culture and language strength in the 21st century entirely lies on the issue of urbanization and globalization. Globalization is a condition where the world becomes a global village through the use of technology. He discusses that in this era, people are so much pre-occupied by humanitarian and environmental catastrophes that the issue of enhancing linguistic is slowly eroding. The issue of environment and culture are depended on each other as the weather will define the state of the society in a particular area. Stephen indicates that when he went to visit a remote arctic community whose language was vulnerable and their foundation culture build on climate, he realized that climate is what makes a culture and the language.

He evidently discovered that when he listened to the Eskimos language. The Eskimos live in the polar region that exposes them to harsh environmental conditions, and thus they fight to survive. With relation to their tongue, you find that the sound they make and the signs demonstrate their environmental situation. Stephen in his essay correlated the language people speak with the environment. Once in a particular place, winter season arrives, the stories that people had start to disappear slowly.

The juggernaut of the homogenizing forces of globalization is the primary cause of the destruction of culture and language. In essence, you find that people from all over the world tend to use one language. Stephen in his essay calls it the universal tongue. There is beauty in linguistic diversity, and when the minority languages are omitted or left out of the reason for centralizing the world then, most culture will be forgotten within a blink of an eye.

Nowadays finding elderly people sitting around giving stories about their culture and passing it over to their children is more delusional as due to globalization and technology, most of them are found glued to the television watching the holly woods movies. Their children adopt the same behavior and thus the culture of that society has got no tomorrow. Culture and language are what brings unity and peace in the community as they have got same goal and purpose.

Due to consumerism, you find that even an eight-year-old child possesses the latest smartphone for video games and the media entertainment. However, not all languages are suited for these technologies. Approximately 50 languages can be used in video games over a variety of language. It, therefore, raise an alarm as to if both young and old are using technology then the minority languages are endangered and soon they will be extinct.

The world is built on monoculture and consumerism because there is a goal set up for sustainable economic growth. The less language used, the less cost is incurred. Growth has become an abstract that is driving a human to destroy the ecosystem upon which life depend on. A scientist creates awareness on the protection of biodiversity whereby everyone agrees with the idea of protecting the animal and plant species that are endangered. It should be so in the endangered languages by using the internet represent a better opportunity to bring small and minority groups together rather than television.

For someone to be ascertained that he or she is speaking the language of the native, one has to speak the language fluently and master the paralinguistic features as well. To be able to speak a language like a native, one needs to produce exactly the same collocations of words to the rhythm, gesture, flow and timbre of the speaker. Each language has got different voices, and when we lose the language, we lose the orchestra of voices that permeate the mind; we lose the music and poetry of words that elicit so much pleasure. The power of language should be celebrated since without it the world would be so much dull.

In examining the common element in the death of monoculture, the essay is typically an example of a Travelers Tale by Sir Richard Burton. He was an explorer who has traveled all over the world and thus has come across different culture and language that are portrayed in the essay of Stephen. Richard was linguistic, and he knew various languages such as French, Spanish, Greek and Latin. The two essays bring a strong relationship in the advocating for language and culture protection.

Even though Richard was a Christian, he went to India and learned and mastered the Arabic language and the Hindu religion. This brings out Stephens idea on not only knowing the vocabulary of a language but also acting and speaking like a native. It was because of this that he was able to be admitted to Mecca and Medina as a pilgrim in 1953. For someone to be accepted in a different religion and being able to fit in is what is regarded as cosmopolitanism. In Stephens essay, he just discusses it but Richard does it. The basic point is the common issue of preserving language to protect the culture from being eroded.

By being a traveler, Richard was able to connect with different cultures all over the world. With an example from Stephens essay, whereby he portrays language as knowing the paralinguistic features, Richard was able to translate different languages and even write poems in those languages. It showed that he mastered the native culture to transform the language into the impressive words like poetry. In essence, you find that the essay on the Death of Monoculture explains what needed to be done to save culture diversity while the second one on a tale of the traveler practically confirms them through the adventure of Sir Richard Burton.

In this essay, Richard shows how living in a cosmopolitan society brings out respect and appreciation to other peoples different. In that line, one can understand that human being is different and that one culture does not have to impose on the rest as people can learn from the difference of other people. The two essays bring out a relationship of saying and doing. While Stephen proposes, Richard applies all the concepts of saving culture and linguistic diversity.

Burton brings about the advantages of cosmopolitan openness and the fact that one does not need to have dispassion to his or her culture leave alone others. Burton brings out how someone should think outside the mirror. You can be friends with both Christian and Muslims without agreeing on everything, he says.

Although the two essays juxtapose their issues in a different way, they still commemorate to one idea of saving the culture and language. They talk about living in openness cosmopolitan. Though Burtons essay is from ancient time and Stephen highlights the current issue of globalization, they both show that at no cost should culture be eroded.