OPTIMISM IN THE FACE OF URGENCY: WOULD INDEPENDENCE INCREASE OR DECREASE SCOTLAND’S CHANCES OF SAVING GAELIC?

by Scarlet Peterson

Scarlet Peterson is a MA student in French Linguistics at the University of Illinois. In the future, Scarlet hopes to become a professor. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021.

Ever since Brexit, the Scots have been considering independence more seriously than ever. Although there is still much debate surrounding the topic (and setbacks due to COVID-19), the notion is still not far from reality. And, with the recent alliance between the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Green Party, the political clout behind independence is stronger than ever (Dallison). Many Scots insist that, if independence from the United Kingdom was realized, they would be more capable of managing their internal affairs and preserving their identity (Learmoth). A fundamental aspect of this identity is contained within the Gaelic language, a minority language spoken by 1.7% of the Scottish people. Already spoken by a sliver of the population, this slice of Scotland is disappearing at an alarming rate, with a decrease of 5% of speakers from 2001 to 2011 alone (Campsie). Because the transmission of Gaelic has skidded to a halt in the vernacular communities, action must be taken immediately to preserve the language (Ewing). The question is: could an independent Scotland realize this goal more effectively than the status quo?

Three principal problems pose a threat to the preservation of Gaelic: a decay of the vernacular communities, a lack of education of and in Gaelic, and a paucity of meaningful venues where Gaelic is spoken regularly. If these are effectively addressed, the language will find far more stable footing than it currently has.

This graphic shows the percent of survey respondents who said they spoke Gaelic — the highest concentration is in the islands. 
By SkateTier - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31996352

First, the Scottish Isles are seeing an exodus. As 25% of native Gaelic speakers live there, this marks the end of natural transmission, a dramatic change in the vitality of the language (Ewing). To combat the depopulation crisis, the SNP has proposed a “National Islands Plan,” part of which contains an “Islands Bond” (Ewing). Though this is subject to change, and may vary from island to island, the most publicized policy is an offer of 50,000 pounds to young people and families who agree to stay in or move to islands that are most at risk. The goal is to support one-hundred individuals and/or families up to the end of the parliament in 2026, making the monetary cost 5 million pounds over the next five years.

Not much data is available to project the efficacy of this initiative. In cases like this, adverse selection paired with simply funding individuals who were already planning on making the move is a risk. Provided that it does work, however, there is some hope for the Gaelic language. A 2014 study by Dr. Cassie Smith-Christmas addressed language acquisition and attitudes of those who move to (or move back to) Gaelic-speaking areas. The research found that migrants’ use of and fluency in Gaelic increased (even if just at the basic level). Additionally, the observation was made that incomer families were more likely to put their children in Gaelic immersion schools than local families (Smith-Christmas 22). This would lead to the rising generation being strong in Gaelic, but without access to proper education, this would have no long-term effect.

Historically, Gaelic-speaking individuals were related to a poor, rural, and uneducated class. For example, they were referred to with degrading names, such as “nattie” or “slicer” (Giollagáin). After the Highland Clearances, the language was repressed (Clarke 399). But, public opinion has since taken a turn, and now values the preservation of Gaelic, and furthermore, recognizes the vital role that easily-accessible education plays in that goal. This is actively supported by the SNP (Davidson). Representative McMillan, in a Scottish Parliamentary debate on the National Gaelic Plan, stated:

I welcome the additional demand for primary school Gaelic education, which has increased by 79 per cent, and the additional demand for secondary school Gaelic education, which has increased by 48 per cent. I would like more young people to have that opportunity, but it is clear that the situation surrounding the transition to secondary school is now challenging (Ewing).

The representative then goes on to discuss how finding qualified teachers will be the next stumbling block in the face of this process. But, with new Gaelic immersion schools announced in both Glasgow and Edinburgh within the past year, the future is looking bright for the language, at least in the face of early education (Swanson, Sandelands).

The Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu teaches students through Gaelic

By MacSteaphain - Own work, CC BY 3.0, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5741400

But, when students grow up and graduate, any language skills will be lost if there is no venue in which to use them. To accommodate this, the SNP has suggested establishing a “recognized gàidhealtachd,” or area where Gaelic is spoken (Davidson). However, no official has offered a definition of what a “recognized gàidhealtachd” would look like, or what policies would be attached to it. Additionally, the SNP has proposed vague plans to increase the amount of Gaelic used when interacting with the public (Campsie). But, again, these plans lack substance; the simple truth is that when goals and timelines are not explicitly defined, they are not likely to be realized.

But, to conclude with the overall question: would an independent Scotland better face these challenges than an allied one? Considering the activity of the SNP regarding the preservation of the Gaelic language, I would suggest that there would be little, if no difference. In fact, if Scotland did decide to break from its southernly neighbor, the end would be detrimental, if only slightly so. The UK uses the Barnett formula in order to divide its annual budget—the truth of this is that it almost always favors Scotland relative to England (Learmonth). In fact, for every pound spent on an English citizen, 1.30 is spent on a Scottish citizen (Learmonth). Katy Gordon, an economy spokesperson, stated “At some stage the nationalists are going to have to admit that if they ever achieved independence they would be throwing away billions of pounds a year for public services.” Considering that much of language preservation is in public policy—such as funding vernacular communities and schools—this is not something to be taken lightly, nor divorced from the overall issue at hand. So, in the meantime, provided that Westminster maintains its distance and Scotland continues to exercise its devolved powers over education and culture, one can expect the status quo to be the most effective option available.

 

References

Campsie, Allison. “More Gaelic to Be Used at Scottish Government under Plan to Save ‘fragile’ Language.” The Scotsman, July 2021, 

https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/more-gaelic-to-be-used-at-scottish-government-under-plan-to-save-fragile-language-3309493.

Clarke, Amy. “Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? The Uses of History in Scottish Nationalist Politics, 2007‐Present.” Australian Journal of Politics & History, vol. 66, no. 3, Wiley-Blackwell, Sept. 2020, pp. 396–414. Academic Search Ultimate.

 

Dallison, Paul. “Scottish Greens Back Coalition Deal with SNP.” Politico , 28 Aug. 2021, https://www.politico.eu/article/scotland-green-party-conference-approve-coalition-government-snp/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.

Davidson, Gina. “Scottish Election 2021: Gaelic Education Needs Boosted to Preserve Language, Says SNP.” The Scotsman, Apr. 2021, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-election-2021-gaelic-education-needs-boosted-to-preserve-language-says-snp-3201037.

            

Davidson, Jenni. “SNP to Explore Creation of a Designated ‘Gàidhealtachd’ as Part of Measures to Support Gaelic.” Holyrood, Apr. 2021, https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,snp-to-explore-creation-of-a-designated-gidhealtachd-as-part-of-measures-to-support-gaelic.

Ewing, Annabelle. “National Gaelic Language Plan – in the Scottish Parliament on 23rd June 2021.” TheyWorkForYou, MySociety, 23 June 2021, www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2021-06-23.28.0. Accessed 23 Sept. 2021.

Giollagáin, Conchúr Ó, and Iain Cambeul. “Chapter 8: Contemporary Sociolinguistic Profile of Gaelic in Language Planning and Policy Context: Relevance of Management Models.” The Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community: A Comprehensive Sociolinguistic Survey of Scottish Gaelic, Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, Scotland, 2020. 

Learmonth, Andrew. “Spending in Scotland 30 per Cent Higher per Person than in England Because of Barnett Formula, Says IFS.” Holyrood, 31 Mar. 2021, https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,ifs-say-barnett-formula-leaves-spending-in-scotland-30-higher-per-person-than-in-england. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021. 

Sandelands, Drew. “New Gaelic Schools Set to Get Go-Ahead in Glasgow.” Glasgow Times, 24 Mar. 2020, https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18327844.new-gaelic-schools-set-get-go-ahead-glasgow/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021. 

Smith-Christmas, Cassie. “Language and Integration: Migration to Gaelic-Speaking Areas in the Twenty-First Century.” Soillse, Soillse Project , Feb. 2014, http://www.soillse.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Language-and-Integration-Migration-to-Gaelic-Speaking-Areas-in-the-Twenty-First-Century.pdf.

Swanson, Ian. “Police HQ and Old Hospital in Running to Be Site of Edinburgh's New Gaelic School.” Edinburgh News, 9 Sept. 2021. https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/education/police-hq-and-old-hospital-in-running-to-be-site-of-edinburghs-new-gaelic-school-3376156. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.

OPTIMISM IN THE FACE OF URGENCY: WOULD INDEPENDENCE INCREASE OR DECREASE SCOTLAND’S CHANCES OF SAVING GAELIC?

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BILBAO’S LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE SEEN THROUGH A METRO RIDE

by Sidney Schroepfer

Sidney Schroepfer is a senior in psychology and Spanish at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sidney’s future plans include applying to graduate school for clinical psychology and volunteering in ESL classrooms. He wrote this blog post in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in Fall 2021. 

Before beginning this blog post, I would like to thank my host parent, Tere, and the professors from the University of Deusto. Thanks to them, my study abroad experience had a major impact in understanding myself and the world around me, and I gained a deep connection to the city, its languages, and its people.

In this blog I interweave my observations from a typical metro commute with research that demonstrates where and how Euskara is used. And therefore, demonstrates how a salient Basque identity is being shaped.

First, I paint Bilbao’s context through a brief history lesson. The Basque language, Euskara, is a language isolate (Urban, 2021). It has no perceived relation to the other languages in Europe that geographically surround it. Despite this lack of linguistic connection, the Basque people have played an important role for the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, Bilbao was the main port for the Kingdom of Castile during the Middle Ages (The Port, 2018). In recent history, Basque identity and the Euskara language fell when fascist and extreme nationalist groups shunned and discouraged the use of minority languages and expression of minority cultures in public spaces in Spain up until the 1970s. From this low, Basque people have rebuilt their cities and reestablished their identity and appear poised for more salient Basque expression through language. And it is from within this context I begin my commute.

Figure 1. Arrantzale (Bar), Getxo

Stepping out from my apartment in Algorta, I walked along the seaside towards Puerto Viejo (old port) in Getxo. In this area, approximately a twenty-five-minute metro from the main city, Euskara shares its presence on commercial buildings with Castilian. One place I passed is called Arrantzale which means fisherman in Euskara (Figure 1). Right beside Arrantzale you see in Castilian, ‘Taberna’ (tavern) and ‘Bar’ (bar). Naming this popular tavern Arrantzale honors the whaling and fishing that kept the Basque region prosperous. And including Castilian in its signage introduces Euskara into the Castilian speaking population in the area and further places Euskara into the linguistic landscape of Bilbao. Carmen Fernandez Juncal reports in their research, “[Euskara] has a greater symbolic-connotative function” and that “…certain subjects…are more likely to be exposed in both languages” (Fernandez, p.724). In Algorta and throughout the Bilbao region, Euskara is often used to name commercial businesses and Castilian tags alongside it to help further identify what it means for those who do not speak the language. This shapes identity by symbolically putting Euskara in equal level to Castilian.

I then hopped onto the metro, and after a twenty-minute ride, walked to the University of Deusto near the center of Bilbao. I remember the first orientation where the university president took center stage and spoke in Euskara about the university’s mission to focus on Basque academic achievements. The notion of expressing a Basque heritage through academia demonstrates how linguistic and ethnic communities can reshape and define their own future through establishing credible institutions.

At the university I had a gastronomy class that involved cooking lessons from a chef at the Ribera Market. We took the metro from the university and arrived in the city’s old center, Casco Viejo, and walked over to the Ribera Market to make Basque cuisine. Gastronomy plays an important role in establishing a communities ethnic or regional identity. For example, think about French cuisine and the prestige that has, and think about differences in cuisine for northern and southern states of the US. Clearly, identity is expressed through a state/region’s gastronomy. Kerri Lesh identifies how locations like the Ribera Market play into the economic prosperity of the Bilbao and attributes value to Euskara through marketing products globally and placing prestige on the associated cuisine. Lesh states “developing ideas of how language materiality and value are produced, languages such as Euskara can better strategize the promotion of their gastronomic and tourist sectors” (Lesh, p.60). With the university connecting study abroad students to the Ribera Market, Euskara and Basque identity are shown off and promoted to outsider groups.

After classes at the university and at the Ribera Market, I took the metro again to travel to a local elementary school in the close suburb Otxarkoaga where I tutored English in their after-school program. Here I got exposed to how Euskara was taught in some schools and how children felt connected to their neighborhood. What I observed largely aligned with what Begoña Echeverria concludes in their observations and quantitative research. Echeverria concludes that “Basque schooled students identified as Basque and linked that to their Euskara whereas Spanish-schooled students identified as equally Basque and Spanish” (Echeverria, p.365). As I tutored in English, I would ask them questions about their neighborhood and family, and for many children, if they did not know the word in English they would choose to speak in Euskara as opposed to Castilian. Children who are born around Bilbao and have access to Euskara language education, they strongly identify with the Basque community.

Figure 2. Mixing with Euskara and Castilian

At the end of my time at each of these locations, bar, market, university, or classroom, the conversations in Castilian that we had always ended or began with a Basque greeting. My favorite was “agur” which means both hello and goodbye. Euskara bleeds through into the Spanish conversation, especially amongst the highly educated in Bilbao. For example, Castilian is the language that is mostly heard when walking down the street. However, in cases where there is high mixing of people in Bilbao, Euskara was the language of conversation (Figure 2). This too is an example of increasing Euskara and Basque identity that takes hold of the verbal landscape in Bilbao.

In conclusion, from short rides on the metro I was exposed to how commercial enterprises utilized Euskara to symbolically tie business into historical triumphs of the Basque people. I saw how food and tourism tied in to strengthen the prestige of Euskara. I learned from the children in the area how Euskara education increases their pride of their heritage. And of course, the embedding of Euskara greetings in the conversations in Castilian serves to remind where exactly we are. From these different sectors, it is clear a Basque identity is shaping and strengthening using Euskara.

References

Echeverria, B. (2003). Schooling, Language, and Ethnic Identity in the Basque Autonomous Community. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 34(4), 351–372.      https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2003.34.4.351

Fernández Juncal, C. (2020). Funcionalidad Y convivencia Del Español Y El Vasco en El Paisaje Lingüístico De Bilbao. Íkala: Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 25(3),713-729. https://doi-

org.proxy2library.illinois.edu/10.17533/udea.ikala.v25n03a04

Lesh, K. N. (2021). Basque gastronomic tourism: Creating value for Euskara through the materiality of language and drink. Applied Linguistics Review, 12(1), 39–63. https://doi-org.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/10.1515/applirev-2019-0101

The Port: History. Bilbaoport. (2018, February 9). Retrieved December 2, 2021, from https://www.bilbaoport.eus/en/the-port/history/.

Urban, M. (2021). The geography and development of language isolates. Royal Society Open Science, 8(4), 202232. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.202232

BILBAO’S LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE SEEN THROUGH A METRO RIDE

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APPRECIATION OR APPROPRIATION? YIDDISH AND KLEZMER MUSIC IN POST-HOLOCAUST GERMANY

by Sophia Ebel

Sophia Ebel is a senior in Comparative Literature and Germanic Studies at the University of Illinois. Her future plans include applying to graduate programs abroad in language education and education policy. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021.

It is not uncommon for tensions to exist between linguistic groups, but in few cases is the relationship as strained as between Yiddish and German. Yiddish is a Germanic language that was previously spoken by Ashkenazi Jewish communities throughout Europe. For sociopolitical reasons Yiddish was historically viewed as a lesser dialect or distorted form of German, despite its lengthy history and unique influences from Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Romance and Slavic language families. Still, prior to the Second World War there were approximately 13 million Yiddish speakers living in Europe (Walfish). 

The Holocaust, however, more than decimated this population and many of the surviving Yiddish speakers chose to emigrate and abandon their language as they sought to move forward with their lives. Today there are only an estimated 600,000 Yiddish speakers worldwide, with the majority living either in Israel or in Hasidic and Haredi communities in the United States (Yiddish FAQs). Despite Germany’s linguistic relationship with Yiddish, there are few Yiddish speakers in the country today. Despite this, however, Germany does have a vibrant Klezmer and Yiddish music scene. The backgrounds, motivations, and goals of performers have varied over the past 75 years, but the rise to prominence of this specialized community of practice in post-Holocaust Germany illuminates the complexities of understanding language, identity, and history in the country.

One fascinating aspect of this musical scene and expression of the Yiddish language is that very few of the performers are themselves Jewish or have Yiddish-speaking background (Eckstaedt). This seeming paradox dates back to the years immediately following the Second World War where the younger generation of Germans gravitated towards the genre as they sought to both protest their parents’ generation and their complicity in the Holocaust, and to craft a traditionally grounded musical identity that did not draw from the German folk music used and abused by the Nazi regime. While most of these musicians genuinely developed a deep interest in Yiddish and Judaism, they had no knowledge surrounding how Yiddish and Klezmer music were supposed to sound. They tended to fall into patterns of exoticization and stereotyping, perpetually placing Jews in the role either of the victim or of a folkloric figure belonging purely to the past (Ottens).

Following German reunification, three diverging trends emerged in German-Yiddish music: authentication, trivialization, and globalization. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed for Jewish musicians from Eastern Europe to come to Germany for the first time. Along with a boom in American Klezmer groups touring Germany in the 1980s and 1990s, these musicians brought authentic knowledge of Klezmer music to Germany, providing old audio recordings of Yiddish and Klezmer for German musicians to learn from. At the same time, however, the increased immigration from Eastern Europe and persistent Antisemitism in Germany led to a parallel Yiddish performance scene reminiscent of minstrel shows in the United States. Non-Jewish Germans would make jokes and sing songs in “Yiddish”, but in their performances reduced the language to merely “verkümmerten Deutsch” [stunted German] and the European Jewish experience to an exotic whirlwind of poverty and persecution (Ottens). By this point though Yiddish and Klezmer were no longer the sole minority musical tradition in Germany. Awareness of world music was also increasing, and Klezmer became simply one form of many used as a symbol for multiculturalism and diversity. 

These three trends have converged into two contemporary modes of Yiddish and Klezmer performance. The first draws on authenticity and is enabled by globalization; it is grounded in the past, Eastern European Jewish culture, and focused on maintaining Klezmer’s traditional style and language. The second operates in a framework of globalization yet has been criticized for perpetuating trivializing elements; it redefines Klezmer as an expression of spirituality rather than a fixed musical style and expands the genre to potentially any musical output (Loentz). Both of these modes, however, are dominated by non-Jews and often push Jews to their periphery. This raises questions of the extent to which language and culture can be separated from identity, and where the line should be drawn between the appreciation and appropriation of the Yiddish language and culture. 

On the one hand, proponents of broadening definitions and expressions of Klezmer and Yiddish music argue that it makes the form more accessible and facilitates learning about Jewish and Yiddish culture. This emphasis on learning is also shared by the more traditionalist school. Aaron Eckstaedt accordingly describes Klezmer music and Yiddish as “a unique chance [for Germans] to grasp something Jewish” in a country where few Jews remain but learning about Judaism and German-Jewish history have become an important part of national identity (Eckstaedt 46). Others argue, however, that contemporary Yiddish and Klezmer music in Germany are less “Jewish” than they are representations of Germany’s post-WWII cultural landscape. Germany’s history adds a problematizing slant to this phenomenon: does the country responsible for destroying a language and culture get to recreate it as an expression of interest and tolerance? Does this cultural shift mark how far Germany has come, or is it simply a second erasure of Jewish language and culture in the country?

References

Eckstaedt, Aaron. “Yiddish Folk Music as a Marker of Identity in Post-War Germany,” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe, vol. 43, no. 1, Spring 2010, pp. 37-47.

Loentz, Elizabeth. “Yiddish, Kanak Sprak, Klezmer, and HipHop: Ethnolect, Minority Culture, Multiculturalism, and Stereotype in Germany,” Shofar, vol. 25, no. 1, Fall 2006, pp. 33-62.

Ottens, Rita. “Der Klezmer als Ideologischer Arbeiter: Jiddische Musik in Deutschkland,” Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, vol. 159, no. 3, May-June 1998, pp. 26-29.

Walfish, Mordecai. “The History of Yiddish,” My Jewish Learning, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yiddish/.

“Yiddish FAQs,” Rutgers University Department of Jewish Studies, https://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/yiddish/102-department-of-jewish-studies/yiddish/159-yiddish-faqs.

 

APPRECIATION OR APPROPRIATION? YIDDISH AND KLEZMER MUSIC IN POST-HOLOCAUST GERMANY

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KARELIAN: CAUGHT BETWEEN THE FATHER- AND THE MOTHERLAND

 by Walther Glodstaf

Walther Glodstaf is a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Illinois. Walther's future plans include modeling language change in bilingual contexts and using our knowledge of language both at a mental and societal level to develop better policy specifically for minority language protection. He wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021.

‘Everyone in Karelia has to respect history and know that we are living in an area which has always belonged to these nations…’ (Andrej Nelidov, November 2010; Helsingin Sanomat, 2010) (Scott, 2012).

Though Nelidov – the president of the Russian Republic of Karelia – refers to the Finnish ethnicities in his speech, it is noteworthy that his use of the demonstrative ‘these’ can not only be applied to distance Karelia from Finland but also from Russia. Since it is these nations who have often disputed over the territory and have thus made Karelia a pawn in their international political arena. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the Karelian language which serves as a textbook case of how the definition of a language is political and the tragic outcomes when this definition is applied for political ends with no respect for the real linguistic situation of the language in question.

Karelian is a language that is spoken around the region of lake Ladoga and Onega in what is now primarily Russia and Finland. Large parts of this used to be a part of Finland until the second World War though. It is also spoken in the Oblast of Tver near Moscow as a result of the forced movements of people during in the USSR. It is a Finno-Ugric language that has only about 36.000 native speakers according to Ethnologue and which can be divided into three main varieties: Karelian Proper, Olonets Karelian and Tver Karelian. Between these main varieties there are further smaller ones with large linguistic differences to the point of mutual unintelligibility (Palander, Riionheime & Koivisto, 2019).

Due the geographic area that Karelian inhabits having been split between Finland and Russia, the language itself has been co-opted as a battleground between them. In the early 19-hundreds Karelia was positioned as the cultural cradle of Finnish culture and its language which is highly similar to Finnish was treated as a dialect of Finnish. As a result, when the Finnish communists lost the Finnish Civil War, they fled to the Soviet Republic of Karelia that had been recently founded as a part of the USSR. These refugees were more educated than the locals and quickly ended up running the administration in the region. This included language policy. But instead of creating a new standard as was common in other parts of the USSR (Austin, 1992; Zamyatin, 2012). The leadership of Karelia decided to have Finnish be the language of education in Karelia. Some of this has been thought to be a result of the leadership expecting Finland soon to be joined into Karelia. Other factors are more cultural in nature where due to the status of Karelia as a cultural cradle of Finnish, it was merely natural to see Finnish as a mere prestige variety of the language (Scott, 2012).

What is less disputable though is, that as far as the language and lived reality of Karelians was concerned, a foreign intelligentsia that comprised a percentage of the population, had taken the reins of language policy of a people that themselves were a minority (ca 38%) in their own region. Thus by 1932 99.2 percent of Karelian children studied at Finnish schools (Austin, 1992). And though this increasing effort in publishing and literacy was no doubt in part beneficial to Karelians, it also shows how political agendas more so than the wishes of the speakers of the language shaped the linguistic policy that governed Karelian.

This changed however in 1938 where virtually overnight all traces of Finnish were removed in Karelia. This included writing, speaking, and people. Finnish had been identified as a hostile language by Stalin’s regime and thus Karelia and its language had to be distanced from it. In terms of people this resulted in the forcible removal, imprisonment, and execution of nearly all leading figures in politics and administration, and anyone promoting Finnish; as well as the immediate closure of schools and ban on speaking Finnish by adults and children alike (Austin, 1992).

In terms of the language its name was changed from Finnish to Karelian, its script from Latin to Cyrillic, and its words from Finnish to Russian. Austin (1987) for instance notes that three-quarters of official announcements of the formation of the Karelian Soviet Socialist Republic (in 1940) were Russian with Karelian morphological word-endings. This effort in language planning went so far that even saliently Finnish parts of the syntax such as morphology was deleted to make the language less Finnic (and incidentally on the surface behave more like Russian).  Austin (1992) for instance quotes Bubrikh (the writer of the normative grammar of the Soviet-era Karelian) as finding ‘the richness of the morphology […] completely unneccessary’ (Bubrikh, 1932). This Soviet version of Karelian for instance thus had a mere 9 cases compared to 12-13 documented before, forcing a greater use of prepositions instead of case morphology like in Russian. A casualty of this is for instance the adessive case (corresponding to on/in) that was lost completely. Or the reduction of the inessive case morpheme –ssa/-ssä (corresponding to inside) to –s (Austin, 1992).[1] As a result, language transmission was also affected since suddenly there existed no native speakers of this new constructed variety of the language among the few that survived the purges. Russian was therefore more likely to be passed on to the subsequent generation by their already bilingual parents.

In the present day, Karelian has recently gotten a uniform written standard in Latin script for all dialects. It is also represented on Wikipedia and has since 2011 gotten a translation of the new testament. Speaker numbers are however declining since the language is only taught as an optional foreign language class and most Karelians – a minority in their geographical region – are more likely to speak Russian than Karelian (Semenova, Khanolainen & Nesterova, 2021; Zamyatin, 2012; Kruchykova, 2002).

While the future of Karelian might look bleak, it offers nonetheless a valuable lesson in how language and what counts as a language is weaponised in politics. It is unlikely that the similar battle over the Valencian results in a similar tragic loss in language and human life as Karelian, but it bears to keep in mind the true cost of a language policy that is removed from the wishes of its actual speakers. Thus, if there ever was any doubt that language rights are human rights, Karelian offers a good example of it.

References

Austin, P. M. (1992). Soviet Karelia: The Language that Failed. Slavic Review 51(1), 16-35.

Austin, P. M. (1987). Soviet Finnish: End of a Dream. East European Quarterly XXI.183-86

Bubrikh, D. (1932). Karely i karel’skii iazyk. Moscow.

Kruchylova, T. B. (2002). Effective Language Politics: The Case of Karelian. World Congers of Language Policies 16-20/04/02.

Palander, M.; Riionheimo, H. & Koivisto, V. (2019). Introduction: Creating and Crossing Linguistic Borders. In: On the Border of Language an Dialect Palander, M.; Riionheimo, H. & Koivisto, V. (eds.), 7-15.

Scott, J. (2013). Constructing Familiarity in Finnish–Russian Karelia: Shifting Uses of History and the Re-Interpretation of Regions. European Planning Studies 21.

Semenova, E.; Khanolainen, D. & Nesterova, Y. (2021). Indigenous language education in Russia: current issues and challenges. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1921782

Zamyatin, K. (2012). From Language Revival to Language Removal?. JEMIE 11(2), 75-102.

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[1] Though it needs to be said that by now this reduction has also occurred in colloquial standard Finnish, so it is possible that this change in the inessive was developed sooner in Karelian and thus Bubrikh’s grammar was surprisingly descriptive on this point, despite its prescriptive agenda.

KARELIAN: CAUGHT BETWEEN THE FATHER- AND THE MOTHERLAND

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FRENCH AND TAMIL IN PONDICHERRY-SOUTH INDIA

 by Maithreyi Parthasarathy

Maithreyi Parthasarathy is a junior in Linguistics at the University of Illinois. Maithreyi's future plans include working as an English as a Second Language instructor and pursuing a career in diplomacy. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021.

At the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent, a mini France found a home called Pondicherry. Located in Tamil Nadu, this territory seems out of place in the region with its cobblestone boulevards and French edifices. In this territory, the French language thrives, spoken by over half of the local population and established as an official language. The former French colony hosts a population of local French speakers, both native and second language learners, keeping the language and culture alive. Throughout its centuries long presence, the French language has interacted with and been shaped by various languages in the region, its most extensive contact is with the major language of Tamil Nadu, Tamil. In this blog, I will look into the French linguistic diaspora in Pondicherry, their history in the region, the language’s current social and political status there, and how Tamil has shaped the language and French educational systems.

The French language travelled with French colonists in the mid 1600s to the Indian subcontinent. In 1673, the French acquired the land where modern Pondicherry is located, transforming what once was a small fishing village into a thriving French trading center. French culture and language began to dominate the town, with many of the streets, buildings, and locations within the city being built from scratch under the governance of Fracois Martin, sponsored by the French government. In 1703, six villages surrounding Pondicherry were sold and added to the territory, thereby expanding it (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 21-24).

Though Pondicherry was not always exclusively under French governance, French culture still thrived during the few decades under Dutch and British rule. Due to its international presence and further French investment in the region, many immigrants from other parts of India flooded to the city to escape war, famine, and British rule, bringing other Dravidian and Indo-European languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi. The French ruled there until 1948, when India gained its independence. With independence, Pondicherry became a union territory of the new nation, creating a vibrant multiethnic, multilingual community in the region (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 21-24).

Today, Pondicherry’s environment, culture, and administration enables the continued maintenance of the minority language. The large majority of French speakers in the region today are bilingual speakers. As many French nationals hold a great deal of wealth and prestige, they have fostered positive recognition for the language and a steady interest in local communities for learning it. Furthermore, French is viewed as a highly favorable language to know for nationals who could potentially move to France. In France, they can obtain jobs, serve in the military, and participate in French politics and culture (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 74-77). Despite this, some French nationals and those in the creole community often lament the “degradation” of French, believing contact with local languages like Tamil and English adversely affects it. Though the French government has sent support for French language efforts in the region, it often struggles to overcome the strong push to learn English for economic opportunity (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 26).

Socially, publications, businesses, and organizations promote French throughout the territory. From 1947 to 1954, there were 57 bilingual French and Tamil newspapers published in Pondicherry. Today, the paper Le Trait d’ Union keeps this tradition alive ( Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 26). In the realm of businesses, information technology, automobiles, energy, engineering, and manufacturing are prominent, with businesses like L’oreal and Louis Vuitton having a strong presence in Pondicherry (“French Culture in Puducherry”). Various organizations like the La Société Mutuelle des Créoles, Les amis de la langue et de la culture Française, the Alliance Française de Madras, and the French embassy near Pondicherry build cultural ties to France by organizing dances, drive through fundraisers, festivities, and parades, such as Bastille Day festivities in Pondicherry. Furthermore, signs, menus, and other orthographic articles throughout the region are written in both French and Tamil, allowing French speakers to navigate the region with ease (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 27-29).

French education in Pondicherry often reflects social trends for the language as well as roadblocks those planning for the language often run into. To learn French in Pondicherry, four types of schools are available that offer the language: ethnic (schools for students speak a minority language at home), biethnic (schools teaching a variety of languages for students of differing ethnolinguistic backgrounds), transition (schools that teach subjects in the students’ native language until their target language skills are ready to learn in), and maintenance (schools where students learn some subjects in the majority language and others in the target language). However, the push for students to learn English over French as a global language means that French is often sidelined in the educational process. In biethnic schools, French is optionally taught as a second or third language, while transition schools only teach math and science in French, lowering the fluency and exposure students have to the language. (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 166-169).

However, in French language classes in the region, French is markedly used as a social identifier, and codeswitching is common. Word choice signals to other speakers their dual identity as Tamilian and French, as they intentionally use Tamil words even when they know the French equivalent (eg. using dabba for boxed lunch over the French substitute) (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 181-183). Furthermore, teachers will often signal to their students in both Tamil and French to create greater efficiency and engagement in their classrooms. For instance, teachers will deliver explicit instructions, encourage development in students’ answers, or reprimand students in Tamil while teaching French. This makes students feel more at ease in classrooms and also signals to students that bilingual usage of Tamil and French is not a faux pas (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 176-177).

The presence of French in the Indian subcontinent has created a unique dialect of French known as Pondicherry French (PCF). Extensive contact with Tamil has transformed the phonology, verbs, and universal quantifiers in French spoken there, differing extensively from Standard French (StdF). For example, spoken and standard Tamil has induced PCF to nasalize vowels followed by m or n (kõm (PCF) vs comme (StdF)), add retroflex consonants (maɭ (PCF) vs. mal (StdF)), and delete or r and l sounds at the end of words (Kelkar-Stephan, Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India 80-81). Similarly, Tamil has influenced PCF to adopt the Tamil system of using past tense verb forms to refer to events happening in the immediate future. PCF has also used future tense verbs to talk about habitual actions that happened in the past, an element taken directly from Tamil syntactic systems (Kelkar-Stephan, “Future Tense to Express Habitual Past or Present, and Past Tense to Express Immediate Future”). These changes have made Pondicherry French be seen as a “patoi” (a derogatory term used by Standard French speakers for certain dialects of the language), as it generates a distinct accent and grammar compared to Standard French.

Pondicherry French’s character has been shaped by both the Tamil language and French history in India. Its maintenance in the region is in large part due to the efforts of speakers to integrate it to fit the needs of their local environment and identities as bilingual speakers of Tamil and French. As such, despite its status as a minority language, it is likely the language will continue to have a presence in Pondicherry and influence its local culture in the future.

References

Kelkar-Stephan, Leena. “Future Tense to Express Habitual Past or Present, and Past Tense to Express Immediate Future.” Rara & Rarissima, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110228557.185.

“Puducherry Directory.” Www.puducherryonline.in, https://www.puducherryonline.in/city-guide/french-culture-in-puducherry.

Kelkar-Stephan, Leena. Bonjour Maa: the French-Tamil Language Contact Situation in India. Shaker, 2005.

FRENCH AND TAMIL IN PONDICHERRY-SOUTH INDIA

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ITALIAN IN PUERTO RICO? EXPLORING ITALIAN AND CORSICAN IMMIGRATION TO SOUTHERN PUERTO RICO

by Erin Trybulec

Erin Trybulec is a Master’s Student in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois. Erin's future plans include pursuing a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021.

Note: Research in Progress

Puerto Rico or “La isla del encanto” (the island of enchantment) as it is lovingly known in Spanish, is relatively small in terms of its physical size, measuring around 100 miles by 35 miles (Telemundo PR, 2018); however, the island is home to an immense amount of culture and rich history, which also happens to include influence from Italy and Corsica, two nations with an intertwined past and linguistic mutually intelligibility (Blackwood, 2008). Although the topic of immigration in Puerto Rico is less discussed, a careful look at historical figures and buildings around the island reveal some remnants of their influence. Italo-Puerto Rican and/or Corsican-Puerto Rican roots can most commonly be traced to southern cities like Ponce and Yauco (Pousada, 2018), as well as the surnames of several well-known Puerto Ricans including: Gabriela Berlingeri (model and current girlfriend of Bad Bunny), Pedro Pierluisi (the island’s current governor), and Antonio Paoli (the first and most famous Puerto Rican tenor of Spanish and Corsican ancestry). The goal of this blog is to compile historical and modern research to explore Puerto Rico’s linguistic landscape (Landry & Bourhis, 1997) during the 19th and 20th centuries; I will demonstrate that Italian and Corsican immigration incentivized by Spanish policy increased the island’s population, but evidence does not support the maintenance of these individuals’ languages due to Hispanicization.

The curiosity for this research topic began following my internship work at El Huerto Urbano del Callejón Trujillo, a former hacienda site near Ponce’s historic downtown that was reclaimed as a community gathering space and garden in 2018. The organizers’ mission was to clean a lot that had collected years of garbage, turning it into a safe space to plant the seeds of food sovereignty and healing post-Hurricane María. I had the privilege to work with the organizers and community members during the beginning of the huerto; each day, we would gather to help remove concrete, dig the mandala gardens, plant seeds, etc. One could not help but notice the large building in the center of the lot. Although uninhabited and predominantly home to many tree branches and vines, one room is home to thousands of documents dating back to the 1940s and 1950s; the majority of said documents contained headers that listed the business name “Mueblería italiana” (Italian Furniture Store) and the names “Buono & Petrilli” were the presumed owners. Interestingly, all of the documents were written in Spanish, but contained these same, blatant references to Italian ancestry.

The 1930 Puerto Rican census for Ponce’s neighborhood Cuarto (4th) listed a husband and wife by the name of José (Giuseppe) Buono y Bello[1] (age 55) and Dominga (Domenica) Petrili de Buono[2] [3] (age 41) as living at 13 Calle Gran Vía[4]. José’s occupation is listed as “shopkeeper at hardware store,” although it remains unclear whether this may have been the furniture store. The census also notes that the couple immigrated to Puerto Rico from Italy in 1908 and spoke Italian prior to their arrival. This is further supported by the 1920 Puerto Rican census, which lists the couple’s birthplace as Italy (more specifically San Giovanni, Puglia per New York passenger lists from 1820-1957) and native language as Italian. Since Puerto Rico was under U.S. control at this time, the census also contained a question about residents’ ability to speak English[5], to which the couple responded “no.” The family also included seven children, all of whom were: born in Puerto Rico[6], listed as bearing the last name Buono y Petrili, English speakers (with the exception of the youngest son, Dante, who was underage for this question), and extranjeros (foreigners). Additionally, passenger lists from travel to New York in June of 1929 indicate that José was an Italian/Spanish bilingual, while Domingo (his second oldest son) was an English/Spanish bilingual. 

The Puerto Rican census of 1940 provides further clarification and an update on the Buono y Petrilli family, showing that their eldest son, Nicolás (age 29), lived at 23 Calle Gran Vía with his own family. He married Guadalupe Anavitate (age 26 at the time of the census; born in Puerto Rico) and they had two children. Nicolás’ occupation was listed as the owner of a furniture store and his English language status remained the same. Despite his English proficiency, Nicolás’ other household members (ie. wife and sister-in-law) did not speak English. The same year, Nicolás’ parents and six siblings still lived down the street at 13 Calle Gran Vía. Four of his brothers were employed at the furniture store and his father appeared to have retired, having no occupation listed.

Based on public records, it appears that there are still some direct descendants of the Buono y Petrilli family living in Ponce today. 

The census data allows us to see that José and Dominga immigrated to Puerto Rico at the turn of the century and adopted Hispanicized names, a common trend among immigrants at this time. We initially see this Hispanicization in their names, as the couple’s respective Italian names were Giuseppe and Domenica. We also note the adoption of the traditional Spanish surname formation, consisting of the paternal last name y (and) maternal last name (Stodder, 1998): José’s surnames are listed as Buono y Bello; similarly, Dominga’s compound surname reflects the traditional adoption of a spouse’s last name with: de Buono (of Buono). The children’s names listed on the census and other supporting documents are all Spanish names; the only slight remnant of Italian influence is a minute suffix transfer from Italian. The Italian diminutive -ino may be affixed to a root to indicate small size or endearment (Maiden, 1995, p. 188). In the 1930 census, the family’s middle son, Blás, is identified as Blasino. Hence, b, it appears likely that the Buono y Petrilli family linguistically adapted to the Puerto Rican environment, with evidence suggesting all family members spoke Spanish and the children all spoke English[7]. Although there is no evidence that suggests the children spoke Italian, the documentation directly states both parents were native Italian speakers and considered themselves bilinguals as of 1930. It is likely that the parents spoke Spanish with their children, but may have spoken Italian with one another, simultaneously providing their children with exposure to the Italian language despite not identifying as Italian speakers. Modern diasporic studies generally maintain that native speakers of a language maintain said language, despite immigrating and predominantly using another language in their daily life, unless a traumatic experience (cf. Schmid, 2002); on the contrary, language maintenance in second and third generations differs by language and country (cf. Potowski, 2013). In the context of Italian, Bortolato (2012) found that the generation among Italians of the diaspora in Anglophone Canada had a large effect on intergenerational language maintenance; her data suggests that third generation family members and beyond are less likely to maintain the Italian language for a multitude of reasons, the predominate one being that proficiency is not the most predominate form of cultural currency required to identify as Italian.

Although the story of the Buono y Petrilli family is a curious one, it only provides one perspective on Italo-Puerto Rican history. In reality, there were Italians and Corsicans in Puerto Rico nearly a century prior, predominantly resulting from La Real Cédula de Gracias de 1815 (The Royal Decree of Graces of 1815). During this time, Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony and this act was Spain’s first time opening their colonies to non-Spaniard immigration. The act brought an influx of individuals from: Corsica, Italy, Germany, France, and other European countries by offering naturalized citizenship, tax breaks, and farmland incentives based on the number of individuals (six acres per colonist); although some researchers insist Spain exclusively sought to grow the island’s white Catholic population, Rosario Rivera (1995) argues that there was also a need for laborers, and the motivation to migrate with enslaved individuals was to receive 3 additional acres of land per enslaved person. Rosario Rivera (1995) also noted that due to the fact that the date of Italian unification is debatable, but did not occur until well after the proclamation of the decree, individuals whose origin states became part of Italy were listed as Italian; similarly, Corsicans were counted as French migrants with Corsica listed as their city of origin. From 1816-1820, there were 268 migrants listed as having Italian origin and at least 35 were of Corsican origin.[8] In a stark contrast, data reported in Dorsey & Barnes (2006) suggests that Puerto Rico lacked and Italian population until 1827 (n=230), which grew to 279 by 1832. There is no individual data reported for Corsican populations at this time, as Corsicans were also counted as French; the French population, however, more than doubled in size from 612 in 1824 to 1,510 in 1832. In Ponce specifically, the French (including Corsicans) “owned the majority of slaves […]” (p. 9).

According to the public records analyzed by Ponce historian Questell Rodríguez (2018), the city’s population had reached 37,345 people and approximately 2,251 people were considered foreigners by 1878. He also notes that there was a large amount of English and French being spoken in Ponce by this time. Rivera Velázquez (2010), on the other hand, noted that the population of nearby Santa Isabel had a small foreign population (~1.29%) which included 14 Italians of 4 different families; these families were all involved in some form of merchantry (including but not limited to: the cotton industry and the manufacturing of bricks) and their children tended to inter-marry. In his research, River Velázquez found some overlap between Italian and Corsican families who shared the same last name; this suggests that further research on Italo-Corsican history and migration patterns is necessary to understand how immigrants’ social circles in Puerto Rico may have been affected.

Today, there is no known discussion regarding the maintenance of Italian nor Corsican as heritage languages in Puerto Rico, nor a large discussion about the long-term impacts of immigration. This is likely due to the topic being somewhat difficult to research from a historical standpoint and because of a variety of overarching political issues and concerns, namely: Puerto Rico’s status as an “unincorporated territory of the United States[9]” and the status of the English language in Puerto Rico, among many others. The modern conversations regarding languages in contact in Puerto Rico tend to focus on Spanish and English, as the 1993 Senate Bill 1 named Spanish and English the island’s co-official languages (cf. Barreto, 2001; Clampitt-Dunlap, 2018). Despite this, Pousada (2018) notes that Italians were among the largest foreign population in Puerto Rico in 2015 and that there are documented cases of native Italian and Corsican speakers on the island within the last decade. Italian is also offered at the University of Puerto Rico as foreign language. In an effort to encourage further exploration of this topic, further analysis of public records is required to trace family histories, possibly allowing researchers to locate members of these communities for ethnographically informed linguistic interviews; these types of interviews could lead to documentation of oral histories including culinary influence, for example, which may also be a viable route for exploring long-lasting Italian and Corsican influence because sofrito, a base of many Puerto Rican dishes is thought to have taken its name from Italian sofritto. An additional route of historical exploration can be accomplished through analysis of the names of Puerto Rican schools and cultural centers, as they are often named for important figures like Anthony Paoli. Additionally, historically informed exploration of the Spanish colonial (post-Royal Decree of Graces), pre-unified Italian, and Corsican language policies will be necessary to determine language status in these respective locations and how these ideologies were combined within the Puerto Rican linguistic landscape (cf. Blackwood, 2008) during this time period. Until then, Puerto Rico continues to face ongoing political and budgetary challenges, which may result in the loss/consolidation of some the aforementioned schools and cultural centers, including some which bear the names of important historical figures of Italo-Corsican origin or descent, like Escuela Antonio Paoli in Ponce.

---

[1] This is the terminology utilized by the United States government; in Spanish this idea has been translated as Estado Libre Asociado “Free Associated State,” and politically, this remains a great point of contention because it is considered to be evidence of colonization (cf. Barreto, 2001).  

[2] There were many individuals listed as being of French origin, but there was no specification of their city of origin or colony name.

[3] This is can be explained by changes to education made by the U.S. government, which required English courses and the installation of American teachers in an effort to “Americanize” the island following the Official Languages Act of 1902 (cf. Barreto, 2001).

[4] It is important to note that this was a self-evaluation question in the form of a yes/no answer.

[5] Although the 1930 and 1940 censuses state Nicolás was born in Puerto Rico, the 1920 census lists his place of birth as Italy and his native language as Italian; there are other discrepancies with the 1920 census for the other children’s’ birth place is listed as Italy and native language as Italian, but this data was later crossed out.

[6] May appear in Italian as Buono di Bello.

[7] In some documents her name appears as Domenica Maria Gaetana Petrillo Sorrentino 

[8] Although the documentation found from the furniture store has a spelling discrepancy when compared to the census, this likely occurred because census data was gathered verbally and other studies have shown that the direct translation of the U.S. Census to Spanish for use in Puerto Rico combined with lack of understanding of racial boundaries on the island led to other discrepancies, most notably an intentional whitening of the population (cf. Loveman & Muñiz, 2007).

[9] Interestingly, their former address is about a six-minute walk from the El Huerto del Callejón Trujillo.

References

Barreto, A. A. (2001). Politics of Language in Puerto Rico. University Press of Florida. 

Blackwood, R. J. (2008). The state, the activists and the islanders: Language policy on Corsica. Springer. 

Bortolato, C. (2012). Language maintenance-attrition among generations of the Venetian-Italian community in Anglophone Canada (thesis). University of Exeter, Exeter. 

Dorsey, J. C., & Barnes, S. L. (2006). Toward a History of Slavery in Small Places: Agrarian Diversity, 

Demographic Expansion, and Economic Stability in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, 1812 -1838. Journal of 

African American Studies, 10(2), 3–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41819111

Copy 

 

Loveman, M., & Muniz, J. O. (2007). How Puerto Rico Became White: Boundary Dynamics and 

Intercensus Racial Reclassification. American Sociological Review, 72(6), 915–939. 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472503

 

Landry, R., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1997). Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical 

Study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X970161002 

Maiden, M. (1995). A Linguistic History of Italian. Longman. 

Potowski, K. (2013). Language Maintenance and Shift. In The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics. essay, Oxford University Press. 

Pousada, A. (2018). In XI Congreso de Investigación y Creación Académica 2018 (pp. 1–18). Carolina, PR; University of Puerto Rico. 

Clampitt-Dunlap, S. (2018). Es cuestión de idiomas: Un análisis sociolingüístico del lenguaje y el nacionalism en Guam, Filipinas y Puerto Rico. Mariana Editores.

Questell Rodríguez, E. (2018). Historia de la comunidad Bélgica de Ponce a partir de la Hacienda Muñiz y otros datos. Mariana Editores.

Rivera Velázquez, M. (2021, March 28). Los italianos que vivían en Santa Isabel. Santa Isabel PR. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.santaisabelpr.com/los-italianos-que-vivian-en-santa-isabel 

Rosario Rivera, R. (1995). La real cédula de Gracias de 1815 y sus Primeros Efectos en Puerto Rico. R. Rosario Rivera. 

Schmid, M. S. (2002). First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance The case of German Jews in Anglophone countries. John Benjamins. 

Stodder, J. (1998). Double-Surnames and Gender Equality: A Proposition And The Spanish Case. Journal of 

Comparative Family Studies, 29(3), 585–593. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41603589

Telemundo PR. (2018, April 24). Puerto Rico no mide 100x35. Telemundo Puerto Rico. Retrieved.                       September 15, 2021, from https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/puerto-rico/puerto-rico-no-mide-100-x-35/14174/

U.S. Census Bureau. (1920). Fourteenth Census of the United States. (Roll: T625_2064; Page: 13B; 

Enumeration District: 627; Image: 1477).

 

U.S. Census Bureau. (1930). Fifteenth Census of the United States. (Roll: 2657; Page: 20A; Enumeration 

District: 14; Image: 611.0).

 

U.S. Census Bureau. (1940). Sixteenth Census of the United States. (Roll: T627_4628; Page: 5B; 

Enumeration District: 49-36).

 

U.S. Customs Service. (1929). Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. 

(Microfilm Serial: T715; Microfilm Roll: T715_4526; Line 2).

 

ITALIAN IN PUERTO RICO? EXPLORING ITALIAN AND CORSICAN IMMIGRATION TO SOUTHERN PUERTO RICO

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