i must admit while i've always considered anthropology a subject i'd like, i hadnt really known what it was all about till i stepped into the first lecture (eye opener). the usual impression of anthro's 'oh, its the study of how civilizations come about', but i think i'm about to find out whats behind that very general statement.
yesterday's lecture was rather a general overview of what anthro's all about; the language bit particularly caught my interest. i love languages, especially the east asian languages. being malaysian, you get the chance to pick up different languages and dialects; i speak mandarin, cantonese, and hokkien, besides malay and english. being one who likes to compare words between the dialects and languages, i tend to notice the little similiarities and differences. i remember comparing chinese with a korean friend; we found that the word for book in korean and hokkien was identical, whilst the word for 'man', 'namja' in korean and 'namzai' in cantonese's eeriely similiar.
one more thing, i hail from sarawak, where we have our own brand of the malay dialect. spoken quickly, its almost impossible for the non-sarawakian (and even some sarawakians themselves) to understand. what i found fascinating was how some words in the iban dialect actually sound like malay: (italics = iban) makan = makai, jalan = jalai, pulang = pulai... yet other words're completely different. for instance, we dont refer to chicken as ayam, but manok. we do not say jangan, we say iboh.
there was something the lecturer said that i didnt agree with though. when asked for the word for 'money' in cantonese, we answered 'qin'. she replied that it was the influence from hong kong soap operas. i wouldnt agree, though. my family has always used 'qin' to refer to money, and seldom, if never use 'lui'. in fact, i picked up most of my cantonese vocabulary from my grandmother, whose cantonese's actually more of the Guangxi region than the typical HK dialect.
