Mediart Blog

English language as lingua franca of our time

26/4/2021

A lingua franca, also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language is any language used for communication between people who do not share a native language. It can refer to languages which are native to one nation (often a colonial power) but used as a second language for communication between diverse language communities in a colony or former colony. The term lingua franca was first coined in the beginning of the 17th century by the Italians. At that time, it represented a conglomeration of mostly Italian, with a smattering of French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic, and was used primarily as the language of commerce. The term literally means “Frankish language”, as “Frank” was a common designation for all western Europeans since approximately the 12th century.

Today, English is a common lingua franca across the globe. According to some estimates, almost 80 percent of English speakers in the world are non-native speakers. (Although you can’t get by on just English in all countries).
It is easy to notice the undeniable importance of English language in our lifes. The will to raise awarness of it made us organise a celebratation of English Language Day on 23’rd of April.

We’ve stared the preparation with brainstorming about the activities we could organise and then we were ready to bring the project into reality. During the first week we planned ahead the dates of each article, video, radio spot, radio broadcast and the most significant – activity. As we had everything planned we were ready to start the action.

Our first job was to write a script, promoting English Language Day, for the radio spot which we later recored in our radio. As a new volunteer I was not as familiar with radio equipment as other volunteers but luckily I got the opportunity to work with more experienced one – Karolin. After few attempts and some time of editing the radio spot was ready and could be played in our Radio – Rodon FM.

After the promotion we were working on the arictles informing about the origin of English language and its relations to William Shakespeare. Moreover, we added some fun facts concering the language and some tounge twisters to keep the readers interested. When all was ready we were just waiting for the perfect time to post them, which was around the official celebration date.

Next up, we had a radio broadcast. It was my first time broadcasting live so I was a bit stressed at first but after few minutes I realised it was not as scary as I thought. The broadcast contained of music produced by British artists only which was mixed with short inserts about English Language Day celabration. It was very interesting experience and I was glad to be able to choose my own radio playlist.

On 23rd of April we organised an online class for local students. Considering their age, which was around 10 years old, we had to adjust the content to their level. We prepared a presenatation about the English Language Day and at the end we encouraged them to take part in quiz checking how much they manager to remember. Thankfully, kids were eager to participate and in case of any misunderstandings the teacher was always on the alert to help us. At first we could assume that proceeiding the online class wouldn’t be an easy task but as it turned out, it went pretty smoth. What was the most important – the students gained some knowledge about this essential language for people all over the world in entertaining and understandable way.

To sum up our campaign, we recorded a video enclosing parts of our work, mainly school and radio activities and some information about the event.

In conclusion, I must say that even regarding the pandemic restrictions that brought us a few problems, I am satisfied with the outcome of our campaign. I hope that poeple will remember the importance of English as lingua franca and will always be brave to speak up even while not being a nativie speaker. Let’s appreciate the fact of being multicultural community and exchange the experiences from all over the world, thanks to English language indeed.

Kasia Kuperska

Kasia is a Polish volunteer in Praxis organisation involved in the World English Day campaign.

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The history of Jazz

26/4/2021

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Jazz originated in the spiritual and traditional music of West Africa. These musical traditions were extremely diverse, because of the distribution in a big area. However, there were some similarities between some regional styles, such as having a bigger emphasis on the rhythm instead of the melody or harmony. This music was very different from European music, where the aim was to mash different sounds together in order for them to create harmony. West African music on the other hand was more interested in each player having their own musical journey by developing their own themes and rhythms. In European music, every little detail would be written down. West African music was very hard to be written down because there were no specific rules and the musical knowledge would be passed on orally.

During the times of colonialism, many people were taken from their homes, were enslaved, and were brought from Africa to America. This caused a huge wound all over the world and at the same time, it had a big influence on the formation of new musical styles. A big amount of enslaved people were taken to South America where they influenced many other musical styles such as Samba Tango or Salsa and only a smaller amount of people were brought to the US where Jazz originated.
During 4 centuries of slavery in the USA, the slaves developed their own kind of music and dances, influenced by the traditional West African Music.

After the year 1862, where slavery was officially abolished, the freed musicians would start to develop the Blues style of music, with its roots in the slave songs from the previous hundreds of years. In the Blues style of music, artists would often reflect on the reality of being black in the USA and the nature of racism and inequality. Followed by the melancholic Blues music, the loud and colorful style of Ragtime became very popular in the US. This allowed black pianists to show their skills for the first time in front of big crowds.
Jazz became really popular in the 1920s and 30s and it was influenced by Ragtime but instead of mostly playing it on the piano like Blues, Jazz allowed the musicians to include more and more instruments. When alcohol was banned in the USA, Jazz became even more popular because it was played in speakeasies and it was connected with being rebellious.
Unfortunately during the times of segregation, many black artists were banned from performing in a white Jazz band or attending white theaters.

After World War 2, the artist wanted to renew the old style of Jazz, which was mostly for dancing, into a musical style which was also very good for just listening to it and this is when Bebop became popular. Bebop was characterized by fast tempos, too fast to dance to, and with a lot of improvisations. During this time, many old classics from the earlier Jazz times were renewed with new and more complicated rhythms. Musicians also became less interested in being commercially successful. This is why other genres such as Rock became more popular than Jazz.

To this day Jazz is developing in a very creative way. Every Jazz artist has their unique way of changing it and adding new musical themes to the genre. Jazz has also influenced many modern music styles.
Jazz in general is a music style that gives the artist a lot of freedom to improvise. This freedom originated in the history of Jazz where African Americans had to fight for their rights and eventually brought different people together to enjoy the music.

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQLWDc7PSM

Melissa Mussa

Melissa is a German volunteer in Praxis organisation involved in the World Jazz Day campaign.

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English Language day 2021

26/4/2021

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In 2010, 11 years ago the UN’s Department of Public Information established the UN English Day as an event, celebrated annually on the 23rd of April. The goal is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization. The date of the UN English Language day was chosen because it is traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare.

The earliest form of English, was spoken in the middle ages between the 5th-15th century. Some vocabulary exists because of invasions- when one country enters and controls another. The history of English is the history of invasions- roman invasion in Britain, Norse-speaking vikings and Germanic saxons. The language spoken in the middle ages was called old English, but you might see it being referred to as Anglo-Saxon. An example sentence:
Godne mergen! Me licap pe to metanne! Good morning, pleased to meet you! - For German speakers the beginning of the sentence might sound familiar, because in German “good morning” is “guten Morgen”.
There are a lot of words that have survived from old English like beer, wine, drink, fish, bread, butter, eye, ear, mouth, head, hand, foot, life, love, laughter, mother, daughter, sister, son, brother, father. As a matter of fact in speech we use 80% of Old English, but in written much less.

What’s more, when it comes to William Shakespeare, who was mentioned earlier, he has added a lot of new words into the English language, he has had a big impact on the evolution of the language, which is also the reason why the 23rd of April was chosen for the national day. It is believed that he introduced around 1,700 new words to the English vocabulary, many of which we still use today, despite the language being changed over time due to wars and invasions following Shakespeare’s contribution. At the time that Shakespeare wrote his plays, the English language was constantly changing and absorbing new words, often as a result of exploration and war. Nouns were turned into verbs, verbs were changed into adjectives, prefixes and suffixes were added to alter the meaning of a particular word.

As we have gotten a bit more insight into the English language and the formation of it, we can surely say that English is an interesting language that is also widely spoken in the whole world. Since it connects people from all over the world, it has become the lingua franca of international relationships.
Lingual franca- also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.
I myself included, use English a lot in my daily life, because I work in an international environment and have made connections from various countries, therefore English being the common language we use for communication. I believe that speaking English opens so many doors for you in different areas of life, which is why it has always been important for me personally to have a high knowledge of English.

In conclusion English language is constantly growing, evolving and changing. One new word is added to the English dictionary every 2 hours, which is why the language never really stops it’s growth.

Here are some more fun facts of the English language:
“I am” is the shortest complete sentence in English.

The english dictionary has “ghost words” that mean nothing.

The shortest, oldest and most commonly used word is “I”.

The word “girl” was initially used to refer to “a child” or “young person” regardless of the gender.

The phrase “long time no see” is believed to be a literal translation of a native american or chinese phrase, as it is not grammatically correct.

The original name of the butterfly was flutterby.
“Month”, “orange”, “silver” and “purple” don’t rhyme with any other word. So if you are writing poetry, keep that in mind.

Karolin Kasper

Karolin is an Estonian volunteer in Praxis organisation involved in the English Language Day campaig.

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There is more to climate change than just fossil fuels

21/4/2021

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If you ask a random person, what is the main cause of climate change, the most common answer would probably be: burning fossil fuels. After all, this is what most media sources display, but is that the case or is there more to it? In this article, I will point out different, not so commonly known (and talked about) reasons, why our climate is changing.

It seems like burning fossil fuels is all that is ever talked about but in reality, raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than the emissions of the entire transportation sector. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of environmental destruction (according to the World Bank Group, animal agriculture is responsible for 51% of human-caused climate change).

  The global livestock industry takes an enormous toll on the environment: raising animals for food is responsible for 30% of the world’s water consumption, occupies up to 45% of the Earth’s land, is responsible for up to 91% of Brazilian Amazon destruction, is a leading cause for ocean ‘’dead zones’’, habitat destruction and species extinction. What is more, the global livestock industry produces a significant amount of potent pollution because of the animal waste and veterinary medicines that seep into water and soil.

  Besides animal agriculture, and burning fossil fuels, there is even a greater issue that is not being addressed: the global fishing industry. In a documentary called ,,Seaspiracy’’ it is said that by continued extraction of fish out of our oceans we are essentially deforesting our oceans by not only removing the fish but moreover the methods of removal. The most destructive way of fishing is called trawling. The nets are so enormous, they could fit entire cathedrals and a dozen jumbo jets. The nets drag its catch at the bottom, scarring the seafloor by doing so, leaving behind nothing more but a wasteland.

25 million acres of land is deforested every year, which is horrible, however, the case is much worse for marine life - 3.9 billion acres of seafloor gets deforested annually.

  And the reason its damage is so severe is that when people look at fishing, they are only looking at the ones that were consumed by humans and not all the animals who are caught as bycatch (close to 30 billion animals are pulled out of the ocean yearly) Nowadays fish are being caught through massive fishnets. For every 0.45 kg of fish caught, there is up to 2.2 kg of untargeted species trapped as bi-kill (such as dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and sharks) and that is happening in our oceans every single day.

  Some might wonder, what does all of this have to do with climate change, 93% of the world's CO2 is stored in the ocean with the help of marine vegetation, algae, and coral. They are all interconnected with other sea creatures. For example, when dolphins and whales come to the surface to breathe, they fertilize phytoplankton (which absorbs 4 times the amount of carbon dioxide than the amazon rainforest does and generates up to 85 percent of the oxygen we breathe). So killing off those animals means that the organisms, who absorb carbon, will die too, and hence, a larger amount of carbon will stay in our atmosphere.

  Considering these statements, it seems obvious that the best way to help the situation would be to simply stop contributing to these industries (stop eating or at least reduce the consumption of animal products).

   But why don't the big environmental organizations talk about the obvious reasons behind global warming? One of the theories behind that was pointed out in ,,Cowspiracy’’. The main reason might be: they want to get as many contributions and donations as possible and if they get identified as ‘’anti-meat’’ and start calling people out for their harmful habits (that is rooted deep in them), that will hurt their fundraising.
  They do not want to address the primary cause of environmental devastation(animal agriculture & commercial fishing), because essentially they are still businesses. And they want to make sure that they have a reliable source of funding.

This article is greatly inspired by documentaries ,, Cowspiracy" and ,,Seaspiracy". If you want to educate yourself on the ill-effects that our planet is dealing with because of human activity, these documentaries (which are available on Netflix) are a great source to do so.

Margarita keerd

Margarita is an Estonian volunteer in Praxis organisation involved in the World Earth Day campaign.

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world book and copyright day

19/4/2021

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April 23 is observed worldwide as World Book Day, also known as World Book Day and Copyright Day or International Day of the book. Aiming to promote the importance of reading, a lifelong love of literature and its integration into the world of work, to awaken and encourage the joy of reading and to emphasize the pleasure of reading, UNESCO introduced the occasion, which is now celebrated in over 100 countries.

     The original idea of celebrating World Book Day came from the Valencian writer Vicente Clavel Andres, to honor the brilliant author Miguel de Cervantes (known for Don Quixote), whose death anniversary is April 23. As a result, in 1995, during the General Conference in Paris, the decision was made to celebrate April 23 as World Book Day and Copyright Day. The reason for this is the significance of April 23, which represents the birth and death of several important authors around the world.

     For example, William Shakespeare, Cervantes, Josep Pla, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega breathed their last on April 23, while Manuel Mejia Vallejo, Shakespeare, Haldor K Laxness, and Maurice Druon were born on that day. Regarding the date of death of Shakespeare and Cervantes, there is a historical note that needs to be pointed out. Although both died on the same date, it was not the same day. The difference stems from the fact that Spain followed the Gregorian calendar during those years, while England followed the Julian calendar.

     Books are immensely important. To ensure that the culture of reading continues to thrive and spread joy, this initiative was taken by UNESCO. The endeavor is to maintain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of books in our lives; while recognizing the insurmountable contributions of eminent authors, publishers who have supported the social and cultural progress of mankind.

The three major sectors of the book industry consist of - the publishers, booksellers and libraries. The eventful day celebrates all three aspects to promote reading, publishing and copyright.

UNESCO and other related global organizations to promote the goal choose the World Book Capital for a year.

     Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, has been selected to be the World Book Capital 2021. 'To share a story' would be the theme of this year's World Book and Copyright Day, keeping the pandemic in mind.

IONUT-MARIAN IONESCU
Marian is a Romanian volunteer in Praxis Organisation involved in the World Book and Copyright campaign.

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How Covid 19 and deforestation are linked

1/4/2021

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Deforestation and the Covid-19 pandemic are much closer linked than people might think. In fact, it is the reason why the pandemic exists. Deforestation is one of the biggest threats to people and nature. Every year a shocking amount of more than 15 billion trees are cut down, killing earth’s biggest source of oxygen and destroying the home of thousands of species.

There are two different types of infectious diseases caused by deforestation. The first type are vector-borne diseases. These diseases are carried by blood-feeding animals such as mosquitos or ticks. Because of deforestation, new areas get cleared. Destroying these areas causes the accumulation of water. This leaves more room for mosquitos to breed in huge amounts. Humans start living in the cleared areas, closer to a large number of Mosquitos and therefore the chances of getting stung by a disease-carrying Mosquito are really high.

The second type of infectious diseases caused by deforestation are zoonotic diseases, where a virus jumps from an animal directly to a human. By living in cleared areas, humans come closer to animals that they normally wouldn’t encounter. This is the way how Covid 19 infected humans. The virus wants to spread as much as possible, which is why they always search for new organisms. The virus can exploit the lack of defenses in the new organism, which is why people get sick when they catch a virus.

Zoonotic outbreaks have been increasing more and more in the last few years. The reason is deforestation. Not only do people come closer to animals that will spread new diseases, but they also destroy the habitat of many species, due to deforestation. Destroying the habitat of many species also means that the biodiversity in these areas is getting smaller. The result of a smaller biodiversity is more animals from one species, that possibly spread new diseases.

Clearing the forests means setting a fire. The resulting airborne particles are the leading cause of premature deaths in humans as a result of air pollution in the tropics. Forest fires increase lung problems among local people, and in the midst of the Covid 19 crisis, this risks overwhelming the already fragile health systems in these zones. This can also increase the risk of spreading the virus.

To protect the environment and to prevent more outbreaks such as Covid 19, it is important to protect rural and indigenous communities, which are the most exposed to the risks and the most vulnerable to infectious diseases, due to their limited access to health services. It is also important to make stopping deforestation a priority in tropical zones. Everyone can do something to stop deforestation such as buying specific certified wood products, going paperless whenever possible, limiting the consumption of products that use palm oil, and planting a tree when possible.

Melissa Mussa

Melissa Mussa is a German volunteer in Praxis organisation, in charge of the World Forest Day campaign.

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Mediart

English language as lingua franca of our time

Kasia Kuperska

The history of Jazz

Melissa Mussa

English Language day 2021

Karolin Kasper

There is more to climate change than just fossil fuels

Margarita keerd

world book and copyright day

How Covid 19 and deforestation are linked

Melissa Mussa

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