My sister and I accidentally received an email forward from our racist relatives, saying how awful it was that people were singing the Canadian national anthem in Hindi. It ended with “The national anthem should be sung in ENGLISH the language in which it was written”. This email is especially stupid in a Canadian context, where of course the national anthem was written in FRENCH. But it ties in to the common mythology that a nation must have one language, which as we see in this example is deeply connected with racism, in this case against South Asian immigrants to Canada.
The idea of tying language and nation together was especially promulgated by Woodrow Wilson at the 1918 peace conference that ended world war 1. This was deeply tied in with his racist ideology: Woodrow Wilson hated blacks and refused to recognize Japan's demands for an anti-racisim clause in the league of nations (the precursor to the UN). The project of tying languages to nations has contributed to huge problems of nationalism, especially in eastern europe, which prior to world war 2 was characterized by linguistic diversity, where yiddish, russian, ukranian, lithuanian and german coexisting in many different nations, making it impossible to draw distinct borders.
The myth of monolingual homeland nations, speaking only one language, is common to racist discourse in North America. But monoligual nations generally only exist where empire and oppression have erased linguistic diversity through a concerted plan. Even in these countries diversity continues to exist. Great Britain, for example (which racists consider the 'white anglo homeland') is still home to many distinct languages , including not just English, but Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Scots English, Cornish and Manx. This doesn't include the many languages the originated in other parts of the world that are now spoken in Great Britain. The project of empire tried to erase these other languages, but it was not successful, even after hundreds of years. Other countries that we think of as homogeneous have similar histories, including France, Spain and Germany (and of course, Canada, where French and English are not the only languages!) Next week we look at linguistic diversity and the development of Castellano, what we know as standard spanish.
Assignment: how did you end up speaking english? What are the imperial histories that made it necessary for you and /or your ancestors to adapt english as their language. For some of you, this might have happened recently. Other people might have to go back to the roots of the middle english language, or the beginnings of english useage in north america instaed of french, or spanish, or hodenosaunee or cree. What your personal colonial histories that lead to your speaking of English? Think about this, and if you like post your thoughts here. We will talk about it in class as well.
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So, how did I end up speaking english? The last "other language" in my family was my mother's grandmother. She was Irish, but grew up in Dundee, Scotland, before immigrating to Canada to marry my great-grandfather, who was already the third generation in Canada. She spoke Irish Gaelic as her first language, and spoke English with a heavy Scottish accent. In Scotland, she had been a fan of opera, but in Canada she was a farmwife, also acting as a midwife. None of her kids learned Gaelic. In the last days of her life she forgot English, and only spoke Gaelic. No one could understand her.
ReplyDeleteThis particular language loss is linked to colonization. The English (I'm also part English) tried to erase Gaelic, Irish dress, traditions and religion. Economic expropriation and conquest displaced my great-grandmother's people to scotland, and then to Canada, just as my great-grandfathers people had been displaced earlier, during the Potato famine. Once here, gaelic wasn't valued, and things like that were forgotten.
And so I am born speaking a majority language, english. Not because it was inevitable, but because people tried to erase a culture and language my ancestors had. And in my case, succeeded entirely.
i grew up in an english speaking family but was "strongly encouraged" to follow french in school - our nation's other official language (a little redundant since you all know). my father's parents spoke polish / ukrainian also.
ReplyDeletealways interested in spanish, so learning it.
however, my father's family name was originally "murmylyk".
my grandfather always said his family was from galicia - a polish / ukrainian region - depending on history books where the border was drawn over the years. there is also a galicia in spain. note of interest from wikipedia (if you can trust it!): Galicia (occasionally Galiza) is a historical autonomous community in northwest Spain, with the status of a historical nationality, and was one of the first kingdoms of Europe[1] (Kingdom of Galicia).
the family name was changed because my grandfather was identified as a clever worker on the floor at stelco, redesigning and optimizing machinery. stelco sent him to montreal, which was their primary operations, as an "advancement". when he arrived, he was told by the predominantly "anglo-saxon" masonic lodge executives that if he wanted to advance in the company, he had to lose his "immigrant name".
so, my grandfather thinking of supporting his family, changed it to "morley" - as did one of his 2 brothers, creating some "brotherly" animosity.
as it stands, my grandfather told them to "stick it" and supported his family while studying law, subsequently becoming a lawyer and judge.
way to go grandpa.
sean morley
p.s. final note of interest
my original family name was "murmylyk".
my parents were going to call me "stan".
i could have been "stan murmylyk".
my mother's family is irish and i was named "sean" - "sean morley".
same person, 2 different impressions just by names.
thanks for reading
sean
Thats a really cool story...I really find interesting the part about how it was sort of kind of a choice to assimilate through the name thing...how it greased the wheels but your grandpa said "stick it". That's pretty cool..kind of how it often is with languages too
ReplyDeleteThe part about the different names/impressions is also interesting: I do picture a stan mrmylyk as different from a sean morely...