Reclaiming ancestral tongues

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Saturday Extra: Reclaiming ancestral tongues
By Lorraine Mallinder, Special to THE GAZETTE April 12, 2013

Saturday Extra: Reclaiming ancestral tongues

“I can’t express myself with them,” Christopher Yoo says of family
members in South Korea.

MONTREAL — “So, you must speak Chinese then?”

It was a question that had started to bug me. Of Scottish and Chinese
extraction, most people thought I looked a bit Latina. Or
Mediterranean. Or eastern European. I’d often enjoyed throwing off my
passe-partout mantle and setting people straight. It was like my ethnic
party trick.

Invariably, the reaction would be a squint at my features, followed by
a nod of vague recognition and then The Question. When I was younger,
it didn’t bother me so much, since I had all the time in the world to
learn the lingo. But, in my late 30s with two kids in tow, I began to
fear I’d lost something that might never again be found.

Eventually, I dragged myself to evening classes with the Confucius
Institute at Dawson College. To my surprise, one-third of my classmates
were Chinese. Not wishy-washy half-oriental like me, but the real deal
with two Chinese parents. It turned out that two already spoke dialects
and wanted to learn Mandarin. But, the other two were absolute
beginners, just like me.

In this officially bilingual country, where over 200 languages are
spoken, there’s no shortage of data scrutinizing our linguistic makeup
from every angle. Transmission of so-called heritage languages from
immigrants to Canadian-born children has risen in recent decades — from
41 per cent in 1981 to 55 per cent in 2006, according to Statistics
Canada. But, from the second generation onward, the agency says,
families struggle to keep their language alive.

Statistics Canada data also show the languages that have thrived in
exile — Punjabi, Tamil, Korean and Mandarin. And those that are
foundering — Hungarian, German and Polish. Conventional wisdom has it
that more recent immigrants paired with partners from the same
community are more likely to pass on their language.

I discussed the subject with Mela Sarkar, a professor at McGill
University’s faculty of education, who specializes in heritage language
maintenance. This considered, it seems ironic that she never inherited
her own language from her Bangladeshi father. Does this bother her?

“Some people don’t care. I really do,” she said. “I’ve always regretted
it.”

Sarkar is not alone. There are countless stories of regret, of people
longing to reclaim their ancestral tongues, a growing queue of wistful
punters at this linguistic lost and found office in a country
perennially obsessed with language.

The motivations for claiming back a language are as varied as human
nature. But, linking everything is a need to reconnect, sometimes with
long-dead forebears from places distant in time and space, often with
living relatives only a Skype call away. Invariably, there is a need to
find that missing piece of the puzzle — identity.

Here is a look at six Montreal-area residents who shared their thoughts
about why they are retracing their identities through their ancestral
languages:

YIDDISH

Tamara Kramer, 36, magazine editor and radio host

As a teenager, Kramer failed Yiddish at school. Her parents’ decision
to send her to a Jewish high school had been a “culture shock.” Up to
then, her only contact with the language had been a few words and
phrases from her Ashkenazi grandparents.

She said she left secondary school able to string together a few
sentences. “Whenever I would speak in Yiddish, (my mother) would say:
‘That doesn’t sound like you’re speaking Yiddish.’ That’s because I was
talking in English with Yiddish words.”

The penny dropped in adulthood after she read an English translation of
Lost in America, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s account of his arrival in New
York from Poland during the 1930s.“That’s when I understood!” she said.
“When I read it, it was like: Oh, my God! This was written in Yiddish!
It was so juicy.”

Three years ago, Kramer started Yiddish and Danish, an exercise in
which she visits elderly Jewish people in their homes, exchanging
Danish pastries for Yiddish words and expressions. Their colourful
chats are filmed and posted on her online magazine
(shtetlmontreal.com).

The visits provide insights, not only into language, but also into the
lives of another era. Discussing gefilte fish — an Ashkenazi delicacy
translated as stuffed fish — unearthed surreal childhood memories of
coming home to find a carp swimming in the bathtub.

It’s the sort of imagery that sticks in the mind. Kramer reckoned that
Yiddish and Danish is her best hope of learning the language. “Language
is not just a technical thing. It’s about connecting with a culture.”

IRISH GAELIC

Claire Cooney, 60, botanist atMcGill University

A century-and-a-half after famine forced her ancestors to flee the
Emerald Isle for America, Cooney is trying to learn the language they
were forbidden from speaking.

Her journey began in 2006, on a trip back to her family’s ancestral
homeland.

“When I got off the plane, I looked around and saw people who looked
like me,” Cooney said. “They could all have been my relatives. It was
weird.”

Visiting a museum in Country Clare, she learned about the history
behind the Troubles — the frequently violent ethno-nationalist conflict
in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to 1998.

“The thought that (Irish Catholics) lost their property if they
practised their religion and weren’t allowed to speak their language
really pissed me off,” Cooney said. “I thought I owed it to my
ancestors to learn the language.”

Upon returning to Montreal, she immediately enrolled in Irish Gaelic
classes at Concordia University. Seven years later, Cooney said she has
gained more insight into the Irish mentality. “There’s no verb ‘to
have.’ The way they think is different. Sharing is more important.”

Cooney, who is trying to trace her paternal relatives through a
genealogy centre in Tipperary, said she “kicks herself” for not having
asked her grandparents more questions about her ancestors.

KOREAN

Christopher Yoo, 29, actor, student and waiter

Yoo first went to South Korea on a mission. His parents, first
generation immigrants who owned a dépanneur, had neglected to give him
a Korean first name. “You know when you’re the last kid? They thought
‘he doesn’t need one.’ ”

His lack of a Korean first name meant he didn’t exist in the family’s
lineage records, traditionally maintained by wealthy Korean clans. Once
inscribed, the newly christened Jong Yul Yoo focused his attention on
soccer’s 2002 World Cup in Seoul.

South Korea reached the semifinals that year. For the first time in his
life, Yoo felt Korean. At school in Montreal, he had tried hanging out
with other Korean kids, but they mocked him for not speaking the
language. “They looked at me like I was a loser,” he remembered.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t until last year that Yoo got around to learning
Korean. He was already midway through Mandarin and Japanese studies at
Université du Québec à Montréal when he enrolled for evening classes in
Korean at Marianopolis College. In-between, he went to acting auditions
and worked long shifts as a waiter.

Suffering burnout at the end of the year, he was involved in a car
crash. That’s when he had his epiphany, a sudden awareness of his deep
longing to communicate with family members in South Korea. “I can’t
express myself with them,” Yoo said. “I realized I should have put
Korean first.”

He is trying to learn Korean as fast as he can. “I have to learn my
language,” Yoo said. “Saturday night is my only night off. I reserve it
for my Korean friends. I only want to be in the Korean world.”

CANTONESE

Parker Mah, 31, photographer, jazz musician and radio host

Mah has been battling to reclaim his ancestral language of Cantonese
for seven years. He said he is suffering from a “mental block,” adding
“I feel the burden of my culture on my shoulders.”

It is perhaps this mental block that led to him taking the long road to
Cantonese. After attending French immersion school in Vancouver, he
went on to learn, to varying degrees of proficiency, Japanese, Bengali,
German and Wolof.

Mah said he was forced to confront his Chinese identity after spending
a year in Japan as part of his Asian studies degree. “People kept
asking me where I came from,” he said.

After returning from Japan, he started taking Cantonese lessons, the
first of several fitful attempts to come to grips with his roots.

“Learning the language of my ancestors isn’t just about taking classes
and gaining fluency,” Mah said. “It’s being ready to take that step in
life. Up to now, I haven’t felt mature enough to confront the fact that
if I go to China, I won’t be accepted. That took me a long time.”

Mah’s parents, whose own parents spoke different dialects, communicated
in English. “They were very Canadianized by the time they met,” he
said.

Mah said he plans to visit China soon, perhaps Hong Kong, with the aim
of immersing himself in the language.

“If it isn’t enough of a shock, I’ll isolate myself in a small
village,” he said.

MOHAWK

Cheryl Diabo, 33, student

Diabo, or Kahawinóntie Wakhskaré:wake, remembers her grandparents
arguing in Mohawk when she was a child. “They thought I didn’t
understand,” she said. “My grandfather wanted sweet potatoes, but my
gran had bought normal potatoes.”

As a child, Diabo attended a Mohawk immersion school, but turned her
back on her culture after being sent to a high school off the reserve.

“I was hanging outside Kahnawake, being a teenager,” Diabo said. “It
took me away from my identity. I was sad and lost, but I didn’t realize
I was lost.”

At 17, she became pregnant. As a single mother, Diabo joined the
Longhouse — the reserve’s spiritual centre — in a bid to go back to
traditional ways. She sent her daughter and son to a Mohawk immersion
school, and Diabo is studying Mohawk full time at the Kahnawake
Cultural Centre.

Diabo and her children speak Mohawk at home as much as possible.
Though, more often than not, it’s her children who do the correcting.
Diabo described her spoken Mohawk as “baby language, always in the
present tense.”

Ultimately, relearning the language with her children has been a
healing factor.

“I felt I had to repair my life,” Diabo said. “When I started studying
Mohawk, I felt such a familiarity. I felt a relief internally. The
language reminds me of when I was little, of my grandparents.”

HAITIAN CREOLE

Sophie Gilbert, 43, Université du Québec à Montréal psychology professor

Gilbert had very little contact with Creole, or Kreyol, while growing
up. Her Haitian father spoke French not only with her francophone
Quebecer mother, but also with his friends from back home.

“Back then, people didn’t have the same relationship with language,”
Gilbert said. “Creole was viewed as a street language. Today, it’s
different. Now, it’s viewed as a wealth.”

Part of the impetus to reconnect with Creole came from observing her
Dutch husband passing on his language to their four children. “I felt
that half of me had always been missing, but now it was coming to the
surface,” she said.

“People see me as being black. They send out this perception that I
come from elsewhere. But I felt I had nothing to show to support that
half of my identity.”

Last year, Gilbert started taking lessons at KEPKAA, a Haitian
community group, and is receiving private tutoring before her next trip
back to Haiti this summer. “I go whenever I have the opportunity. I
want to get closer to the language,” she said.

Learning Creole, she has come to realize that her father’s French was
influenced by the language. In French, for example, a commère is a
gossip. But, her father uses the word — kòmè in Creole — to denote a
good friend.

“It’s very constructive, in terms of identity,” Gilbert said.

“Learning your language is important if you want to understand yourself
better, if you want to live in harmony with yourself.”

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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