Warm-Up Make a list on a sheet of paper of words you associate with a particular culture. You might also consider jargon used by people in a particular profession, contemporary slang used among friends and/or online and even words that are part of a corporate culture, like Starbucks.

New York: City of Endangered Languages After viewing this video, how important do you think language is to understanding various cultures? Describe.

After reading the article Pardon My French by MICHAEL KIMMELMAN write down what you think the following quotes mean.

1. “Culture in general — and not just French culture — has become increasingly unfixed, unstable, fragmentary and elective. Globalization has hastened the desire of more people, both groups and individuals, to differentiate themselves from one another to claim a distinct place in the world, and language has long been an obvious means to do so.” — Michael Kimmelman

3. “Globalization … means Americanization.” — Éric Zemmour

5. “Culture means many things in this context, but at heart it is a suite of traits we inherit and also choose to disavow or to stress. It consists in part of the arts. It is something made and consumed, in socially revealing ways.” — Michael Kimmelman

6. “The fact that everybody from Yerevan to Brasilia, Jakarta to Jerusalem, knows songs by the Black Eyed Peas or wears New York Yankees caps doesn’t mean that culture is the same everywhere.”– Michael Kimmelman

12. “Language is identity.” — Daowd I. Salih

13. What is culture? Where does culture come from? Where do we see evidence of it? What role does it play in our lives? In society? How does it reflect and/or shape our individual, group and national identities?

14. What does culture mean in a global world? Does globalization bring cultures together, force them further apart or both? Does it lead more to diversity or to homogeny? Does globalization mean Americanization?