A. ENVIRONMENT
B. CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
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Norms- We the chiripas get together once a year as a family and bring offerings to the magical tree that is known to be a part of tradition from the past Presidents. The tree is very big and looks magical. When I say magical I mean that the tree has so many flowers on it. There's different type and sizes of the flowers. Most of them are large and connect to one another from the bottom of the stems. The smaller ones are in between of the big flowers which makes them pop out. The magical tree is taller that 400 feet. There's no exact height for the tree since our ladder isn't big enough to reach the distance. When we hear the loud instruments playing we automatically have to stand on our head. We put our front paws on the floor and jump up to keep our heads balanced to the dirt on the ground. We hold it for a good minute, and as soon as the music is done playing we lay on our backs and get up and start walking on our four feet again. We don't leave any food behind. If there's some food left over that we don't want anymore we can't throw it away. We're expected to get the food and leave it on our bowl where we live and eat the left over food whenever we get hungry again. As a female chiripa, we're known to be the most baddest one out there. We're the ones that get to pick our husbands by talking to them first. For that reason we let the male chiripas always go first so we could be able and look at which male chiripa we want to have.
Values- Once a year we gather all treats and bring them under the big magical tree that's known for being there for many years that belonged to the past Presidents that have risked their life's and be able to keep the island for us. For that reason we all get the treats to honor the past Presidents and give him thanks. All of us chiripas stand on our head when we hear the instruments playing by the magical cats. The meaning of the loud musical instruments is to let us know that there's peace within the chiripas and the magical cats. The magical cats usually like to mess with us by taking away our treats. They have a leader that's in charge of the magical cats, and that magical cat makes sure that they're not messing with us. If the leader of the magical cats finds out that they've been bothering one of us, he takes away their instruments for 5 months. That teaches the magical cats not mess with us. In the past years, there's been many bad situation that the magical cats have caused. Long long long time ago, one of the magical cats were being sneaky and trying to get some of our food and other personal belonging. One of the chiripas thought that there was a robber stealing their personal belongings. The chiripa blamed another chiripa and it just broke friendships apart. Friendships is a very big thing for us. We like to always be as close to a family that we could all be to each other. But ever since that incident between the magical cats and chiripas there's never been any problems. It's disrespectful for any chiripa to leave any kind of food behind. We're expected to eat all the food because we believe that the food comes from the past presidents sent from the sky. We believe that we're being rewarded for keeping the island safe and clean for all chiripas. We chiripa females let the males go first in any kind of situation. We believe that it's a sign of respect to show the male chiripas that females are being respectful. Female chiripas are known to be as gentlemen and treat the males with higher respect. For that reason they allow the males to go in front all the time with no hesitation.
Worldview- When we die from being too old we believe that we go underground and end up traveling up to the sky after we re-watch all whole life in a movie. The oldest chiripas that there's ever been alive was 70 years old. Most chiripas end up dying at the age 50. We believe that after we're done watching a movie about our life, we get to choose to start a new life over or just keep going with the circle of life. We believe that the Chiripas that pass away are considered to be the star cookies shaped, looking over the rest of the Chiripas and guide them through happiness. The less cookie star shape we see, we know that the chiripas that recently died have chosen to live a new life. We believe that there spirits come down to our island at night and they start to check up on family that they miss. We only that's true because one female Chiripa has seen her husband that passed away from all the butterfly pixie dust. She saw him walking around the bowl where they lived and he was just walking around looking at their wedding pictures. We only believe what we see, we trust that one of our own will never lie. One of the biggest policy that we have here in the island is no lying what so ever. Lying leads to a very big punishment for whoever gets caught lying. The punishment depends on what the president decides.
Symbols-
"Chiripa President"
"Wedding"
"Magical tree"
"Magical playing instrument cats"
Classification of Reality- In my world we have food. In the food we have the variety of all kinds that the Chiripas want. We have pizza, corn, tuna, peanut butter, bacon, water, sweaters, pencil, paper, pepper, lipstick, iphone, lotion, makeup, coffee, dirty socks, and much more. The chiripas get to pick what kind of food they're able to get by asking the Chiripa in charge of all the food at the moment. The food is delivered by frogs in a big food truck sent from the President. The only cars there are is the food truck that has all the food supplies by the frogs. The way the frogs get the food for the chiripas is by going to the big field that is being planted by the lady bugs in charge of the food. The lady bugs get a little bit of pixie dust, carve a little hole to plant them, and just top it off with dirt. That's the way the food is created for them.
C. STRUCTURE/SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
- · Our religion comes from worshiping a big bone that came from the main Chiripa leader “The president.” The President is in charge that all of us are being treated well by the aliens, none of us are stealing food from others. He’s in charge of the whole island. If something ends up going wrong, the President has to come all the way down from the magical tree to discuss the punishments to us. That's never happened now, but legend has it that the last chiripa that got that much in trouble was transformed into an alien and had to take care of the chiripas now. The big bone is known to make miracles happen for all of us that are good and follow all of the rules in The Kings island. The bone brings all of us together as a chiripa family. We keep the bone in tradition because there’s been miracles that happened to 50 Chiripas. They’ve asked the big bone for new chiripa babies, more treats, squeaky alien toys, and the big bone makes it happen only if they know for sure that the chiripas has been good so far.
- · The ages that are known is from birth to 70 years old. Sex gender is to be considered to be girl and boy. The ethnicity depends of what dog breed they are. Pit-bull, Boxer, Chihuahua, German Sheppard, Husky, etc. There’s many more kind of dog breed.
- · The food that we eat are, bone treats when we want something to snack on. The bone treats come from the underground. Where the lady bugs plant them with pixie dust and give them to the frogs to deliver them in the food truck.
- Life cycle, in their childhood they're raised by the male chiripas while the mom chiripas are out doing all the groceries. The baby chiripas end up having a stronger connection to the male chiripa since they're the ones they see everyday. As the chiripas get older we start to read books about life and learn from there. We start to get ready for our next chapter of life adult hood. The girl chiripas, we go out and start looking for a male chiripa that's going to benefit us in our life. We want someone that will know how to take care of our future chiripas. As we start to get old, we're known for keeping the relationships going strong. The way we start to notice that we're getting at the old age is by noticing that our fur starts to fade away little by little. When death comes, it's when all the fur has disappeared and we go up in the sky and start shinning with the rest of the cookie star shape with the rest our old family members that are up there as well.
The importance for us to know the language of the chiripas is to know how to ask or talk to one another. The language culture has been passed down by so many past Presidents to now the present president. We are never sweating pixie dust because the temperature is always low as 70 F. Since we live in a island, there's never rain nor snow. The island is always available for all chiripas to jump in and take a swim. Since it never rains, the tress that we have stay dry which is a good thing. If the magical trees get too wet with water, the tree starts to melt down and decreases the power of magic. The environment here is very clean thanks to the aliens. But we don't like leaving a mess either, they usually clean up after them selves. If we ever end up leaving a mess it's because an emergency happened and we just had to leave. There's no problem for the aliens to clean up after the chiripas since that's there job. We never travel anywhere since the Island is just perfect for us, but if we ever want to change the climate in the island we all have to come together and agree on what kind of temperature we can have. The only climate weather we're allowed to have is snow or a windy weather. The snow just gets on the ground, the snow doesn't get on the island water or the magical trees. When it's windy it doesn't bother anything in the environment.
Section III Essay
In our culture our children learn language from reading the books that are reserved for each and one of us Chiripas. As soon as they're born, they are given a book sent from the star shaped cookies to all chiripa children. This book, is the book of life. It has all the instructions for us to learn the language. Our children learn more than one language if the star cookie shape assigned them to. The only other language our children learn is called "Backward Marching." Backward Marching is considered to make our children speak in half sentences. For example, if we're hungry we call the aliens over and we ask them "Can you bring me my magical bowl?" In the other language our children learn, they ask "Can y brin me magi bow?" The reason some of our children learn that culture, is because they are the chosen ones from the God above us in the magical flowers. He decides who gets to learn this rare language. It is very rare if more than one sibling gets to learn this language. It is usually just one children per family. The early prelinguistic vocalization we see in early childhood, some of our children get jealous from seeing other chiripa children reading the book of life. Everybody in The Kings World wants to know the backward marching language. But not everybody gets to learn it, for that reason we have chiripa children envy others for knowing it. As soon as the chiripa children are born, they are handed the book of life and start to acquire literacy by the help of the chiripa father. Since the chiripa fathers are the ones that raise chiripa children, they're the ones in charge to make sure that our children are learning. The stages of our children learning the language is first, when they're born they are given time to adjust to the new life. About 2 weeks after they're born they are expected to start learning all about the language. Even if they're not the chosen ones to learn the backward marching language they are still expected to learn our chiripa language. After they're done with 1 out of 3 lessons, they're expected to go out and find other chiripa children that are also learning the same language. For our chiripa children that don't speak the backward marching language, they as well go out and start speaking to our other chiripa children in our chiripa language. After completing lesson 1, they're on to learn lesson 2. Lesson 2 requires them to start writing in backward marching language. In the book of life all of our chiripa children have some pages that are desired for them to start writing in our language. As soon as they are done writing, the father chiripa comes to check up on the book to see if they have completed and have done the right assignment. The third and final lesson is for them to finish the book and keep it safe under an umbrella. That's the safest place any our chiripa can have. Those three lessons are all the stages for our chiripas to start learning our language. Our chiripa language has changed throughout the year of The kings island. Back then in the years the only language we had was pointing with our tails and shaking our heads. The reason why our chiripas started to change the language was because so many other chiripas started falling out from the magical trees. There was too many chiripas and we had to start coming with a different language, a language that all chiripas would be able to understand. The magical trees then spoke to the chiripas and said "You may not understand me right now, but after I am done speaking you all will learn the new language in The kings world aka me. All of you chiripas start speaking now!"Cultural features that contributed to this change was since the beginning of time, the only things our chiripas would do is pointing and shaking heads. The pointing allowed our other chiripas know what they were talking about. As to shaking heads that was a sign from saying yes or no to a question.
Our language expresses mood by having the magical instrumental cats. The cats are walking around our chiripas if they're moody. By having the cats around our chiripas, it helps them get happy again. The sound of the instruments makes our chiripas feelings feel happy. Our language expresses emotion by having our chiripas going to the magical trees and hanging up from a branch. When our chiripas do this, it means they're going through a difficult time or they're just really happy and need to get their thoughts together. The way all of our chiripas have our beliefs is set up the same way. We all believe in the magical trees and the God above that gives us our book of life. The norms for our nonverbal communication in our culture that we have is once a year, all of our chiripas gather around to honor the big magical tree. We the chiripas don't speak at all when we're there, it's a sign of respect and shows how respectful all of our chiripas are. As for facial expressions, all of our chiripas smile no matter what. That's the only thing our chiripas are able to do, smile. You can always catch a chiripa smiling. Other than smiling, our chiripas have to blink their eyes when ever they get too much pixie dust in their eyes. The pixie dust fills up the eye all day for them to be able to see, but when it gets too full of pixie dust that's when the blinking comes and it starts all over.
Some of the neologism that reflect the pop culture in my language is for example "Edftgcsawxyy = Hey what's up?" "Hdftgaswxcdqqq = You are beautiful!" "Avfiehngttt = I love you!" "Qqqdrfffvgtttdddfrddd = Nice to see youu today!" This shows how in our culture we use slang as a nice way. All of our chiripas are kind and never mean. If they're having a really bad day, they go to a magical tree to cool off. For fun the chiripas like to collect left over pixie dust from the butterflies, and with that pixie dust they go to the river and dump it out there. As soon as the lake is filled with pixie dust, all of the chiripas are swimming around the whole lake. This keeps them energized all the time. They also like to go on the swings that are hanging from the tree. Food = Pizza, popcorn, spaghetti, french fries and tomatoes. Clothes = Shirts, pants, shoes, eyes, and hands. Tree = Home, territory, belongings, safe, and shelter. Bowls = Healthy, happy, excited, joy, and enjoyable. Pixie dust= Visions, energy, life, happiness, and pure. All five semantic domains Clothes, food, tree, and bowls all symbolize something very important to the chiripas world. All five of those things are the main things they value. The only difference in the chiripa culture from male and female, is that the female is the one that goes out to work for the family while the male is at home taking care of the baby chiripas. There's no high, middle, or lower class to be identifies. All chiripas are expected to be at the same level.
The way our language demonstrates our norms and values is by praising the magical tree that is found to be most magical thing they have in their culture. They show a sign of respect to the magical tree once a year by having all of the chiripa community gather together for a moment of silence. Our language reflects on our adaptive food strategies by having the aliens plant all of our food for the chiripas. The chiripas don't have to plant anything, all they have to do is walk to the magical trials of train tracks and pick some food up. Like I mention before, as the chiripas praise the magical tree it is a metaphor that they say, "whoever shows better community skills, there will a magical tree named after whoever desires to accomplish this goal. For that reason all chiripas are nice all the time. For the female chiripas, they're the ones that work all day they're also the ones to pick who to marry. Since the female is the one that is working hard even before they get married, they get to chose which chiripa will also benefit a future family. When the magical cats appear randomly, all chiripas must stand on their hands until the cats are gone. Long time ago, the cats and the chiripas weren't too nice to each other. Until one day the magical tree filled with giant flowers talked to both of them and made them clear out any problems that they had against each other. Since that day the chiripas honor the cats and for that reason they stand on their head to show a sign of respect.
With this project, coming up with my own culture and language has made me realize many things. I've learned the understanding of language and culture itself. Many people don't realize that there are 7000 different languages, but only 90% of the population are speaking 100 of them. People don't realize that their language and culture are dying down because of lack of culture. I remember we saw a video in class about a woman who remembered a song that her mother would always sing to her. She didn't know where it came from but she knew the song by heart. She later on ended up finding out her culture and language that she never got to learn, since her family moved away from where they were from. The feeling the lady got when she was reunited with her long lost culture was pure happiness. That's the way I feel about my culture. I know many that come from the same type of families like I do. Having my parents from Mexico, coming into the United States and later becoming U.S. citizens is a really great accomplishment. You would think that just because they're U.S. citizens now, all of their Mexican culture will die down and won't teach their children. The children that don't know about their culture because parents chose not to show them are missing out on many other opportunities they could've had if they knew more. There are many other cultures that are being hidden because people won't take the time and actually start learning it and continue to teach it to others. Coming up with a language was really hard for me as well as coming up with a culture. I put a lot of effort on making a fun culture and language. What I didn't realize is that people back in the days actually had to come up with a culture and language. To get all the people to learn new things can take some time. I see language as a beautiful thing. Fortunately I'm bilingual, I know how to speak English and Spanish. To me it is a blessing to know both languages, I get to help translate to my parents and others that need help. It's just a wonderful feeling knowing that you're doing something right for someone.
