52 Ancestors Week 14: Language

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14: Language

The theme for Week 14 is "Language." Have you researched an ancestor who spoke a different language than you or dealt with records in another language? What about an ancestor who was known for their use of language? This is a good week to write about them!

Just think. Google Translate is the Universal translator from
Star Trek. It beats putting a small fish in your ear.

    As readers of this blog know I am half Italian and as an Italian-American I've been exposed to the language of my grandfather's homeland for as long as I can remember. Even though Marco passed away when I was four, my father still spoke Italian on occasion. However, there's one catch. The Italian he spoke isn't exactly like the language spoken by Italians living in Italy. Words and even peoples' names have been transformed once an immigrant settled into a new area and they begin to adapt to their new surroundings. So, imagine my surprise when I found out the Italian I was hearing at home was very different from the language spoken by my cousins in Italy.

La famiglia di Ferraiolo

    To understand how this happened, we're going to have to go back in time. We're going to have to go back to when the immigrants first landed in America and tried to assimilate into life in a strange country. One of my earliest blogs was about how my great-grandfather Vincenzo's name became James in America. Check it out here.

    It's generally agreed that the nickname for Vincenzo, "Cenz", was quickly transformed into James. It didn't just happen for my great-grandfather, by the way. Virtually every man named "Vincenzo" that I've come cross that has immigrated to America has become James.  Think that's wild? Buckle up because there's more!

    When you sound out the name "Cenz" with a thick Italian accent like the one Vincenzo supposedly had, people not in the know are going to think they hear the name "James". That name gets put down on records like censuses and naturalization papers and suddenly Vincenzo is known as James for the rest of his life. Granted, he could be called "Vinny" but most of the time Vincenzo became James in America. Now that's wild.

   Of course that was just one example of a name being changed to suit the new land the immigrant lived in. What about the words? Well, several words have changed and if you've seen movies like "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas" and even television shows like "The Sopranos", you'll know what I'm getting at. It isn't just Hollywood making things up. Let's give Tinseltown some credit. They're very careful about how they portray Italians on screen. Thank you, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

La Famiglia di Carrabs

    So, how are some Italian words changed in America, then? Here's an example. My father reminded me that his grandmother Clementina would ask him to go into the garden and pick something called "vuzinagaul". I'm not sure if that's the right spelling. Please don't Google it! The results might be unpleasant. 

    The word was used in "The Sopranos" and even a few cooking videos on YouTube. He asked me to look it up and eventually I gave up and just watched the video with my dad to see what the lady was talking about. It turns out she was sprinkling a little basil on the dish. Apparently "vuzinagaul" is actually basil! HOW?! I went to Google Translate and basil in Italian is "basilico".

    How.....How did THAT happen?! I mean I totally understand if an Italian word was just flat out converted to English. But, basil?! Hmm. As near as I can tell the "b" sound and the "v" sound both sound very similar to each other if you speak with an Italian accent. But, the rest of it just sounds completely different to me. It's almost like an alien language and if you were to say it in Italy no one is going to understand what you're saying!

    I think the word like other words just changed over time as Italians adapted to life in America. There's no real mystery here. That word and other words that I know to be slangs were picked up by Hollywood and used in various media. That's why you might hear your nonna say something a mob boss says on television. If that ever happens, there's one thing you can do. RUN!

Grandma Ollie!

    Speaking of grandmothers, my grandmother Ollie often taught me a bit of Italian. She may have been born in Haverhill like my father, but, she learned quite a bit of Italian herself from her parents Giuseppe and Clementina

    Granted it was never anything elaborate. It was more basic words like "ciao" and "arrivederci". She never gave me lessons or anything. She encouraged me to learn Italian as I learned Spanish in high school. Both languages are similar thanks to being rooted in Latin. Thank you, Roman Empire. 

    I never really had the chance to learn Italian because Merrimack College didn't offer it during the time I was there. It's a shame because as time goes on the generations that grew up hearing those Italian words and speak in Italian are fading away. All we have left are classes and apps we can learn foreign languages on.

    All isn't lost! I'm actually learning the language of my ancestors through trial and error! That means I just use Google translate when I talk to relatives in Europe or when I need to translate a document on Antenati. Your mileage on that may vary as other apps may be more reliable. I'm actually getting decent at translating various documents. It just depends on the quality of the handwriting. You never know what clerk you're going to get and just how well their handwriting is. In that case, another set of eyes is always welcome!

     Either way, I'm sure grandma Ollie, her sisters and my four Italian great-grandparents would be pleased that I'm trying my best with the language of their homeland. It's just so weird how certain words transform into words that make little or no sense if you're an Italian from Europe listening to those words. I've never come across them in an Italian document or heard them spoken by an Italian relative. Words change over time and like I said the number of Italian speakers in America is declining despite immigrants still coming to America.

    Language will always be a part of my heritage whether it's Italian or French and even the French they speak in Quebec is a little different from the French they speak in France! That's a topic for another day. However, I think the same logic applies. If you're going to move to a new land, you need to adapt to life there and unfortunately that means changing your language in order to lift that language barrier. And the French in Quebec has had hundred and hundreds of years worth of changes. Still, it's a good idea to learn the language of your ancestors wherever they come from. It will help you understand the culture, allow you to talk to people living in those countries and gain an appreciation for what they had to go through when they learned the language of the area you're living in these days. That way your ancestral language won't have to go out with a bang.

Ci vediamo la prossima volta!

P.S. Grandma Ollie also taught me the word "Mangia!" This is the Italian word for "Eat!". This was probably a bad idea on her part.