The Silk Road has always been attractive to many – particularly the seller, saint, sinner and seer. I guess it is the name that is so inspiring. It suggests both the mystery of the East and the luxury of silk. Of course, the Silk Road was not a literal road like the TEM that crosses Europe or the E-5 that goes past İstanbul. It was a collection of routes connecting north with south, taking goods up towards the Black Sea and Europe or down towards the Mediterranean or even the Arabian Gulf.
You may imagine a caravan of camels going all the way from northwestern China to İstanbul. The reality was that most tradesmen worked a shuttle between two big cities, traveling back and forth. Goods would go from one caravan to another, with each city on the route being an important staging post.
Recently, people from many different nations and walks of life, such as educationalists, critics, film producers, etc., came to İstanbul for the Intellectual Silk Road Cross-Media and Cross-Cultural Adaptations conference held on Büyükada, the largest of the Princes' Islands in the Marmara Sea.
For those coming from abroad, just staying at the historic Anatolian Club was special. The mayor of the Princes' Islands came to the opening and gave a brief welcome and short speech about the hotel. He explained some of the history of the islands and said that during the first days of the Turkish Republic when the property belonged to the British Yacht Club, it was appropriated as the Anadolu Kulübü and became a place for Turkish parliamentarians to enjoy İstanbul in the summer. As you walk down the corridors you can see on the walls photos of Atatürk with many dignitaries. Some of the most interesting photographs were of President Atatürk and Prime Minister İnönü hosting Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran.
It is interesting to read books about how through just the culture, daily life and the excavations of art along the Silk Road you can understand the significant interchange between the East and West. In my column this week I will elaborate more on a couple of books and their authors I met at the conference. One of my pieces will be an interview with Laurence Raw, author of “Exploring Turkish Cultures: Essays, Interviews and Reviews,” and the other will be on insights I gained from one of the main presenters, Savaş Arslan, author of “Cinema in Turkey: A New Critical History.”
It is important to emphasize from the beginning that the Silk Road was not only a route for trade but also a medium through which forms, ideas, philosophies and religions as well as styles, fashion, music and especially languages have been transported between the East and the West. For those of us who have had the opportunity to experience the history and mystique of the famous route, we have observed through the excavations of artwork along the Silk Road the evidence of the significant interchange between East and West.
Travel often causes one to be motivated to learn another language. One of the most important factors in being able to learn another language is motivation. Let me just ask you a question: Do you remember why you wanted to learn another language in the first place?
If you are struggling with making headway in your language study maybe these three points will help you:
If we are honest with ourselves, the thing that helps most of us learn another language is the reward. Beyond the language barrier are rewards: Wonderful, exciting people and a better salary.
It is not just about learning another language; it is learning about people and their ways.
Our ethnocentric tendencies, our attitudes towards other groups and our orientation regulate or control our motivation to learn.
The conference on the Silk Road functioned similarly to the travels along that historic network by allowing people from different walks of life who were of various nationalities and languages to come together, not only for trade but to exchange ideas, philosophies and friendship.
In the words of François Grojean, author of “Bilingual: Life and Reality,” “One never regrets knowing several languages but one can certainly regret not knowing enough.”
