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Dying Languages, Found in New York - NYTimes.com
In a country where we have bigoted politicians screaming that first generation immigrants need to forget their cultures, languages etc and 'assimilate' ours - it is refreshing to see people who still realize the importance of the role that multiculturalism has played in this country.
“Whole villages were emptied,” said Valnea Smilovic, 59, who came to the United States in the 1960s with her parents and her brother and sister. “Most of us are here now in this country.”
Mrs. Smilovic still speaks in Vlashki with her mother, 92, who knows little English, as well as her siblings. “Not too much, though,” Mrs. Smilovic said, because her husband speaks only Croatian and her son, who was born in the United States, speaks English and a smattering of Croatian.
“Do I worry that our culture is getting lost?” Mrs. Smilovic asked. “As I get older, I’m thinking more about stuff like that. Most of the older people die away and the language dies with them.”
Several years ago, one of her cousins, Zvjezdana Vrzic, an Istrian-born adjunct professor of linguistics at New York University, organized a meeting in Queens about preserving Vlashki. She was stunned by the turnout of about 100 people.
“A language reflects a singular nature of a people speaking it,” said Professor Vrzic, who recently published an audio Vlashki phrasebook and is working on an online Vlashki-Croatian-English dictionary.
In a country where we have bigoted politicians screaming that first generation immigrants need to forget their cultures, languages etc and 'assimilate' ours - it is refreshing to see people who still realize the importance of the role that multiculturalism has played in this country.
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