Asturian-American Migration Forum

tierradenadie wrote:und wie wärs noch mit einem schuß chinesisch obendrauf, zur abrundung, sozusagen?

Das waer nicht schlecht! Aber das lassen wir fuer das naechste Zeitfenster. Deutsch, allerdings, sollte auch darin sein. Das Problem liegt darin, dass Babys anscheinend die Sprache nur wahrnehmen wenn eine Person eine einzelne Sprache spricht. Ich bin bereits der designierte Russe im Haus u. kann weder asturisch noch deutsch machen. Mal gucken...

granda wrote:But if you look at the Sephardim and the ladino language. They have been able to keep the language for more than 500 years. It wonder why they do it. I remember having a sepharad customer in Greece. He could trace his ancestors until xv century. He had a beatiful handwriting and in the pre-email era he used to hand write faxed in ladino.

Wow, that's fascinating about the customer in Greece and the faxes in Ladino. Have you kept them? I'm sure they could be considered historic at some point. Do you remember his last name?

In Seattle, Washington, there used to be a fairly large Sephardi community dating to the early 20th century, I think. Many were immigrants from the then Ottoman Empire, which still included parts of Albania, Greece, Macedonia until WWI. You can find names like Soriano or Albenda both in Istanbul and Seattle, as well as, of course, in Spain.

About how they retained their language, I once asked an elderly man in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, an area settled by Macedonian and Bosnian Jews. Their services were still in Ladino. Anyway, he answered that it was because they lived in ghettos and had no other choice.

Like Yiddish for the Ashkenazim, the language became elevated to a cultural identifier and almost religious in connotation. For them, Ladino was a source of their Jewishness in a way.

granda wrote:... I found fascinating the fact that the some of the Asturamericans in Luis Argeo's documentary spoke with an impecable Asturian intonation. That was pure asturian for many of them!
However I find sad that the language and culture will probably die with many of them as it seems difficult for the traditions to pass to the new generations. Is it maybe because USA has blended everything that has arrived during the last 200 years? or maybe because there were not enough number of asturianos to create a long lasting influence. ....

I suspect that the language was alive while the community thrived. The first generation stuck together. They moved to various towns to work in the same factories and live in the same neighborhoods together. They also went to regional Asturian gatherings, weddings, funerals, etc.

Their children, in contrast, had a lot of friends outside the Asturian community and usually married non-Asturians. Now many of their grandchildren couldn't find "Asturias" on a map and don't speak Castilian or Asturianu. There's no social need for it. That's why a big part of our original idea was to reacquaint our cousins of this rich heritage. (The other big part was simply that we enjoy Asturias and its culture!)

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Supongo que la lengua estaba viva mientras que la comunidad prosperó. La primera generación se mantenía unidos. Se trasladaban a diferentes ciudades para trabajar en las mismas fábricas y vivían juntos en los mismos barrios. También iban a reuniones regionales asturianas, bodas, funerales, etc.

Sus hijos, en cambio, habían un montón de amigos fuera de la comunidad asturiana y, por lo general, no se casaban con otros asturianos. Ahora muchos de sus nietos no podían encontrar a "Asturias" en un mapa y no hablan nada de castellano o asturianu. No hay necesidad social. Es por eso que una gran parte de nuestra idea original era re-familiarizar a nuestros primos con este rico patrimonio. (¡La otra gran parte era simplemente que nos gusta Asturias y su cultura!)

I usually cut my own hair, too. In fact, I've never been to a barber. Looks like it, doesn't it?!

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Normalmente me corto el pelo yo mismo, también. De hecho, nunca he ido a un peluquero. Parece así, ¡¿no?!