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Undelivered language heritage | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5144 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 46 16 January 2011 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think this is infinitely sad, but I know of a couple of cases where parents did not pass down their language. My uncle emigrated to the US in the 1920ies, he married an Irish woman and when their children grew up he felt it would do them no good to teach them his own language. Besides, he spoke English all the time anyway, so he would have felt really weird speaking Norwegian just to his children. It might have been different if he had married another Norwegian. The sad part about this of course, is that it did not occur to him that he was cutting the bonds between his children and his family. He came over to visit regularly, and the one time he brought his son the poor kid was bored stiff, because at that time (we are talking 40 years ago) people didn't speak that much English, particularly not in the rural areas where his family lived.
My uncle's son later married a girl whoe parents came from Mexico, and although she and her siblings are fluent in Spanish, they did not pass it on to their children. Today people are more aware of their heritage and feel proud of it, but in their environment, and at that time the general move in the US was to be as American as possible, part of which entailed speaking English as much as possible. A few were stubborn enough to keep up their own language and teach it to their children, in spite of getting actively discouraged from doing so, but we cannot really blame those who didn't. Even though I find it peculiar, to say the least when my cousin's son who is half "Mexican" (two generations down) and a quarter Norwegian, does not know a single word of Norwegian, and his Spanish is awful, inspite of the fact that he had Spanish at school. It is also a well known fact, that children hate to stand out, so many will refuse to speak or even to listen to another language, because their main focus is to speak the language everybode else speaks, and to be like everyone else. So sad, yes, but understandable. Fortunately we all have the possibility of learning the language we are interested in later on. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 16 January 2011 at 10:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Segata Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4981 days ago 64 posts - 125 votes Speaks: German*, Japanese, English Studies: Korean, Esperanto | Message 18 of 46 16 January 2011 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This might be stretching the topic a little, but I really wish my parents had taught me Platt/Plattdüütsch (which is either a German dialect spoken in Northern Germany or a language of its own that is similar to both German and Dutch. Depends on how you look at it). Both my parents grew up in Platt-speaking families - they had to learn German as a second language in school back then - and even my surname is Platt. However they never spoke to us children in Platt, only High German, as we moved to a part of Germany where next to noone speaks Platt anymore. Granted, I do understand a little when spoken to because some of my relatives don't speak any High German but I could never actively use it. It is kind of sad how regional languages are slowly dying out.
Platt sounds awesome by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdtIZnNxy-s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtVxMxfvozo Edited by Segata on 16 January 2011 at 11:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6770 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 19 of 46 16 January 2011 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The attitude for languages maybe comes also from hearing different languages or dialects during childood. I have been raised listening sicilian, piedmontese, venetian. My relatives never spoke in their dialects to me and my brothers but we hear them speaking it among them . And I allways was curious about it.
I can understand all these dialects , and I can also two of them in an "intermediate" level. If you really like the language of your ancestors you can learn it ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6770 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 20 of 46 16 January 2011 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Correction of previous post
"and I can also speak two of them in an "intermediate" level" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5769 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 21 of 46 16 January 2011 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That may be. I do know that I've met immigrants who first lived in Canada and then came here. The sentiments they express are consistent with the immigrants who come directly here.
Here, I've found that the Mandarin speaking population generally has a higher percentage of kids who speak the language. Sometimes those kids also read. Those kids though are not necessarily fluent. And I suspect that knowledge will fade. I'm meeting immigrants, 1st generation Chinese, who are having difficulties maintaining their own Chinese language skills.
That may be in Toronto. That's not necessarily what I see here. I say that over-seas born Chinese generally do not consider me Chinese. I also say that I have American sensibilities. But it's one thing for say my brother to call himself a banana vs an overseas person saying that to him. Edited by Snowflake on 16 January 2011 at 6:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4940 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 22 of 46 16 January 2011 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Unfortunately, in the US - particularly from the early to mid-1900s, immigrants were ridiculed and often shunned for speaking their native languages, and that in turn created the environment you describe. It really didn't matter where the immigrant came from. You'll hear the same story from many different immigrant groups (some of my grandparents fall in that group, although I had one stubborn Norwegian grandmother that tried very hard to get her family to speak Norwegian). To hear my grandparents tell it when they were alive, they were only trying to spare their children the ridicule they felt upon arrival. I'm not so sure I believe that that's the entire story, but I believe that their intentions, at least, were good. Luckily, as you point out, our newer immigrants are much more proud of their linguistic heritage and are trying to pass it down to their children. There is still a segment of the US population that will try to ridicule them, though - often the children of the initially ridiculed generation. It'll be interesting to see if we can finally break out of that cycle. R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4992 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 23 of 46 16 January 2011 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, I grew up in a domestic environment where Italian and Sardinian were equally used,
but I can't unfortunately consider myself 100% native bilingual. I've an absolutely perfect understanding of both languages, but truth is that I can't speak Sardinian as fluently as I'd like to. I melt when my grandmothers speak to me using their language, but I feel a bit ashamed when I've to reply them and words don't flow out of my mouth naturally. Sometimes I feel the impulse to learn more, but it's extremely discouranging knowing that this language has no use nowadays. I know it's sad, but... Further information about Sardinian can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 4891 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 24 of 46 17 January 2011 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My grandfather was Polish and spoken Polish, Russian and Portuguese. He married my grandmother. She spoke Portuguese and German. Both raised my father in Brazil, but they never taught Russian, Polish or German to him.
Today I could speak Russian, German and Polish, but I only speak Portuguese. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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