Short Story by Islamic Writer (prose)

Seeing the World in a New Light
by Aziza Hussain

  I walked into Pine Street Inn, a shelter for men and women, holding Safiya's tiny hand, hardly noticing that my grip continued to tighten as I walked through the shelter. I had never been in such a place and seen such different people -- people who didn't have adequate clothes, didn't have food, didn't even have a table to put food on, couldn't own a house. I had always imagined what homeless people lived like, but on this trip, it finally came into perspective: it was real.

Noticing dozens of eyes on me, I looked straight ahead, afraid to come into eye contact with anyone. I saw men, young and old, sober and drunk, sprawled across the floor sleeping, or leaning against the walls shouting at us, "helloo ladies." Seeing them frightened me along with the rest of the MAS youth group.

However, as I continued to walk through the shelter with my group and guide, Scottie, my grip on Safiya's hand began to loosen. Earlier I was glad to have a child's hand to hold; it made it seem as though I was protecting her; however, I realized I was just trying to protect myself. Finally, my fears calmed.

My stomach felt queasy, not out of fear, but out of depression. My heart clenched trying its hardest to fight back tears. Unshaven men looked upon us with deep eyes. Their eyes seemed to tell the stories of their lives, stories so powerful my eyes could hardly meet theirs.

As I looked around more carefully, I remembered these men and women were people, people like me. But they weren't like me. They didn't even have the basic necessities of life. I started to feel out of place wearing expensive clothing and carrying a nice purse. God's blessing over me contrasted with the surrounding in which I was. I began to realize how blessed I am.

I realized how much we all take for granted, forgetting to thank God for the wonderful things we've been blessed with. Many of us fail to see the blessings of this life and focus on the negative aspects of life. Visiting the Pine Street Inn reopened my eyes to reality. I remembered how many blessings have been bestowed upon me by God. Things finally started to come into perspective.

After leaving Pine Street, my outlook on life has changed. One would say, "How can a person change from one trip," but in reality, it is quite possible. I can hardly put into words what emotions have been going through me since I left, but my life has been greatly impacted. Before I say "my life is so hard!" I think back on what I saw at Pine Street. Alhamdullillah, all praises to God, my life is more than bearable. The Qur'an repeatedly states, "On no soul do we place a burden greater than it can bear."

Thinking back on everything I saw, I admire Scottie and the others who work there. Whether one is volunteering or being paid for working there, it takes more than just money to get someone to work in a place like that. It takes a heart. It takes strength. Many times we lack this sympathy for others and forget about the world around us. Scottie and those like her deserve a lot of credit for having the drive to help others. "Those who (in charity) spend of their goods by night and by day in secret and in public have their reward with their Lord: on them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve." (The Qur'an 2:274).

Posted by : Chachakoreanlovers 

Introduction to Phonology

Introduction to Phonology

Speech sounds are very important for human languages, and the study of speech sounds is phonetics. The study of speech sound then include three aspects:

1.      How the sounds are produced

2.      How they are transmitted

3.      How they are perceived

The study of production of speech sounds constitutes three aspects:

1.      Articulatory phonetics = The study of the production of speech sounds

2.      Acoustic phonetics = The study of the transmission and the physical properties of speech sounds

3.      Auditory phonetics = The study of the perception of speech sounds

The study of articulatory phonetics has had the longest history among the three sub- branches of phonetics, probably due to the fact that it is relatively easy to observe articulatory processes. But acoustic phonetics has developed only in the last few decades. In contrast to articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics relies on the heavy use of sophisticated instruments in a way that is similar to the study of acoustics in physics.

The study of articulatory phonetic has three subparts:

1.      We study the articulation (production) of speech sounds

2.      We describe the sounds in a way that is understood by other linguists in the field

3.      We classify sounds according to the properties they have

Orthography is spelling system. Orthography transcription is a transcription method that employs the sound of words. As you have probably noticed, our English spelling systems often fails to represent in an unambiguous way the sound of words. Let see the example below:

Ë The italicized letters represent the same sounds: to, too, two, though, clue etc.

Ë The same spelling can represent different sounds: charter, character, though, tough, sign, resign, thin, then etc.

Ë A combination of letters may represent only one sound: character, though, tough, deal, physics etc.

Ë A combination of sounds is represented by a single letter: exit, axe, etc.

Ë The letters represent so sound at all: though, often, bomb, make, pneumonia etc.

In a phonetics alphabet, there is a one to one correspondence between sounds and symbols. Phonetic symbols are written within square brackets, “[  ]”, to distinguish them from letters or words written in an ordinary spelling system (orthography).

We saw in the previous section that phonetics is the subfield of linguistics concerned with the description of speech sounds. The subfield known as phonology is concerned with how these sounds are systematically organized in a language, how they are combined to form words, how they are categorized by, and interpreted in, the minds of speakers.

Put simply, phonology is the study of the sounds patterns of language, how speech sound are grouped by speakers to effect communication. For example it is a fact of English that the sound sequence [ ps ] never occurs at the beginning of a word – although it can occur word-medially as in [ k æ psul ] ‘capsule’ or word-finally as in [ t æ ps ] ‘taps’. Phonology also deals with the abstract, or psychological, level of sounds, the level at which speech sounds are stored in our minds. For example, the t of top is phonetically realized as the aspirated [  ], the t of stop as the unaspirated [ t ], and (in American English) the t of kitten as the glottal stop [ ? ]. Speech sounds at this abstract level are called phonemes while those at the concrete or phonetic level are known as allophones.

When the speech sound as stored in our minds like the /t/ above, differs from the physical sound as it is spoken. Like the [ t ] of kitten, it is because the /t/ has undergone an alteration. We say that the /t/ has been changed to a [ ? ] by the application of a type of rule known as a phonological process. In studying language it is important to distinguish between phonemes and allophones because this distinction is an important fact about language. The linguistic performs what is known as a phonemic analysis.

Finally, not all languages have the same sound systems or permit the same combinations of sounds in words. For example, the sound system of English does not contain the voiceless velar fricative /x/ that is found in German (in the word Bach /bax/) and while English, does not permit word-initial [ ps ] sequences, a language such as Greek does; in fact words like pseudo, psyche, and psychiatrist are borrowed from Greek.  

Posted by : Chachakoreanlovers