American Language
Page 91
The Census of 1930 revealed 167,891 persons of Portuguese blood in the United States — 69,974 foreign-born and the rest born here of Portuguese or mixed parentage. Of this number, 110,197 gave Portuguese as their mother-tongue. There are thirteen Portuguese publications in the country, including a daily, the Diario de Noricias, at New Bedford, Mass., where the largest Portuguese colony is located.
e. Rumanian
The Rumanians constitute one of the smaller ethnic stocks in the United States. In 1930 the number of persons so classified by the Census Bureau was 293,453, of whom 146,393 had been born in Rumania, 125,479 had been born here of Rumanian parents, and 21,581 had been born here of mixed parentage. But of the 146,393 of Rumanian birth, but 53,452 reported that Rumanian was their mother-tongue. The rest spoke Yiddish (49,508), German (28,640), Hungarian (8,830) or some other language (5,963). The Rumanians proper have three periodicals in this country, of which one, the America, Roumanian93 News of Cleveland, formerly a daily, now appears three times a week. Its former editor, Mr. George Stancu-lescu, informs me that American-Rumanian shows the characters of all the other immigrant languages. It has borrowed a large number of common nouns, especially those representing objects and concepts unknown in Rumania, e.g., baseball-score, strike-breaker, lockout, picketing, golf-links, surprise-party, football-match, shower-party. Sometimes they are taken in unchanged, but more often they are brought into harmony with Rumanian analogues, e.g., conventie (convention), vilbără (wheelbarrow), grocerie (grocery), butcherie (butcher-shop), bort (boarding-house), saloner (saloon-keeper), platformă (platform in the political sense), poipuri (pipes), matchuri (matches). The loan-verbs are inflected in the Rumanian manner, e.g., Te fixuluesc (I’ll fix you), Am betuit (I have made a bet), Se resăluesc (They are wrestling), se matchue (things matching one another), L’au kidnăpuit (They have kidnaped him), Vrea să mă foolooe (He wants to fool me), Nu mă bădărui (Don’t bother me).
There is a strong tendency to abandon Rumanian idioms for translated English idioms. Says Mr. Stanculescu:
A correct translation of the English sentence, “You look well in that hat” would be “Iti stă bine cu pălăria acesta.” But very often a Roumanian-American borrows the English word look and substitutes in (in) for cu (with), making the sentence “Arăti bine în pălăria-acesta.” Similarly “Pari obosit” (You look tired) is translated as “Arăti obosit.” The English word for is pentru in Roumanian, but it cannot be so used in all sentence constructions. Thus Books for sale should be Cărti de vânzare. But the Americanized expression is Cărti pentru vănzare, obviously under the influence of the English for.
In Roumanian any reflective action concerning one’s bodily organs is done upon the agent. Thus, I wash my hands, my face, etc., should be expressed as Mă spăl pe mâni, pe fată, etc. (literally, I wash myself the hands, the face, etc.). But the construction in America, following English example, is Imi spăl mânile, fata, etc. Mă tund is the Roumanian for I cut my hair, but in America one says Imi tai părul. Mă piepten is the correct Roumanian for I comb my hair, but the Americanized form is Imi piepten părul.
The Roumanian dative is on its way to extinction in America. For “Give this letter to my brother” one should say “Dă scrisoarea această fratelui meu,” but in most cases the Roumanian-Americans make it “Dă această scrisoare la fratele meu.” Besides changing the word order by placing această (this) before the noun scrisoare (letter), they also adhere to the English preposition to (la), which in Roumanian denotes a movement toward the brother without ever touching him.
The Rumanian in the United States, especially if he be of small education, finds English very difficult, for there are usages in English which have no parallel in Rumanian. The latter, for example, makes no distinction between may and can or will and shall. There is and there are at the beginnings of sentences offer another difficulty, for there are no equivalents in Rumanian. There is also confusion in gender, for Rumanian has grammatical gender, and no it is in its vocabulary. As in many other languages, an action begun in the past but continued in the present is expressed by a verb in the present tense. Thus, the Rumanian immigrant commonly says “I am in America ten years instead of I have been in America ten years. He finds the sounds of th, sh, ch, ph and gh very strange, and often mispronounces them. Thus one hears tis for this, tot for that, wort for worth, troot for truth, sharp for sharp, short for short, Kicago for Chicago, pkarmachy for pharmacy and enugkh for enough.
3. SLAVIC
a. Czech
The Right Rev. J. B. Dudek, chancellor of the Catholic diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, who was born in this country of Czech parents, has written an exhaustive study of the changes undergone by the Czech language in the United States, but unfortunately only parts of it have been published.94 Through the courtesy of Monsignor Dudek, however, I have had access to his complete manuscript, and present herewith a brief summary of his observations.
The first American loan-words, he says, were taken into American Czech by journalists and lecturers “whose chief claim to intellectual superiority seemed to rest, like that of some American Negroes, upon a propensity to employ a terminology unintelligible to the ordinary person.” But the masses of immigrant Czechs soon took to imitating these pretenders, and in a little while the common vocabulary was largely English. “A volume half the size of Webster’s International,” says Monsignor Dudek, “would be required to list the words taken over in this popular manner.” Most of them, of course, are nouns or verbs. All of the former are fully inflected “according to the declension, determined by the terminal letter or syllable, into which they would fall if written phonetically in Czech characters.” Monsignor Dudek continues:
The animate or inanimate nature of the object, as well as its gender, plays a part in deciding which of a dozen principal paradigms is to be followed. Thus, bučerák, of one masculine declension, means a butcher; of another, a butcher-knife. The gender of the Czech noun denoting the same object sometimes influences the declension of the loan-noun; hence a barn, for which the Czech word is feminine, is not barn, but barna. Corn, for the same reason, is korna; street-car, strit-kára; pants, pence (plural), and whiskey, viska. Džurí is declined after a neuter formula, but there being two Czech words translatable by jury, one masculine, the other feminine, the borrowed word takes modifiers of either gender.… Melas, molasses; šuky or šůze (plural only), a pair of shoes; sodovka, soda-water; kornkabka, a cob-pipe; indyáynče, an Indian child; nygrlatě, a pickaninny; bínze, a bean; bejkbínze (plural), baked beans; můlák, mule; pičes, peach; medes, tomato; kal, a gallon jar; hempsenvič, ham sandwich; eprikoc, apricot; makinchprc, mocking-bird; recna, rat, and hefr (masculine!) heifer, are only a few out of many curiosities for whose appreciation a detailed explanation of Czech phonetics, orthography and grammar is necessary.95
Nouns ending in a long o, in any u, or in a diphthong are generally avoided, for they cannot be readily inflected according to any of the twelve Czech declensions. Sometimes the plural boys is used instead of boy, becoming bojse in American-Czech. Words containing the sounds qu, w, th and wh, especially at their beginnings, are also avoided, for those sounds are difficult to the Czech, as is that of h in certain combinations. Sometimes a word is possible in one case, but not in all. Thus, homebrew is seldom attempted in the nominative, but in the instrumental it is used, e.g., in Otrávil se houmbruen (He poisoned himself with homebrew), and there is a popular verb, houmbrůovati, to homebrew. In the same way, while glue is not used as a noun, the verb zglůuju, to glue, is in common use. The sound of ng is also avoided as much as possible, and words containing it are often changed. Thus loving becomes lavováné. The simple g, on Czech lips, assimilates to k, so that pig and pick are homonyms. The agent-nouns are given Czech terminations —ák, -ař, -nák, -ista, and the like. Thus, a drayman is an ekspresak, a station (depot)-agent is a dýpař, a street-railway employe is a kárník, and a lecturer is a lekčrista. To indicate a female the suffix -ka is used, or
the masculine ending of the word is changed to a feminine form. Thus, a woman nurse is a nrska, and a woman Prohibitionist (prohibičník) is a pro-hibičnice. Sometimes a Czech feminine ending is added to an English one, as in vejtreska (waitress) and čejmbrmejdka (chambermaid). Loan-nouns beginning with a often lose it, e.g., knalidžmnt (acknowledgment). Its loss is encouraged by the fact that in Czech the accent is always on the first syllable.
Verbs lose it for the same reason, e.g., kjuzovati (to accuse), dmitovati (to admit). In sentences, the a (often changed to the neutral e) is commonly restored, usually by being added to the preceding word, but it is omitted when the word to which it belongs stands alone. There is an exception in the case of loan-words in a that have the accent on the first syllable, e.g., to agitate, which becomes édžitejtovati, and to amputate, which becomes empjutejtovati. Monsignor Dudek says that practically all the English verbs in everyday use have been taken into American-Czech. They are put into the sixth conjugation “by the simple process of adding to the loanwords, as spoken, the Czech infinitive termination.” Nouns are turned into verbs very facilely, e.g., brglařiti (to burgle), hauskípo-vati (to housekeep), kuklaksovati (to Ku Klux), gademovati (to God-damn) and sanamabičovati (to son-of-a-bitch). There is also an immense borrowing of adjectives. Some of them, e.g., akorat (accurate) and olrajt (all right) are taken in unchanged, but in the great majority of cases they are regularly declined. Almost any noun may become an adjective by adding one of the adjectival terminations to it. And adjectives may be turned into adverbs just as readily by changing their terminal vowels to ê;. Monsignor Dudek thus describes the proliferation of American-Czech terms in one field, that of automobiling:
Besides the noun automobil, there are automobilista, an automobilist; its feminine, automobilistka; the verb automobilovati, to automobile; and the adjective automobilový. These are the printed forms, but one often hears oto-mobil, otomobilista, etc. Mašina and kára became synonymous with automobil as soon as machine and car did in American. Autobus or otobus, autotrack or ototrak (autotruck, not -track), garáž (garage), garažník (garage-man), šofér, šofr or šoufr (chauffeur), tájr (tire), karburejtr or karbrejtr (carburetor), hajgír and lougír (high-gear and low-gear), hedlajt (headlight), dymr (dimmer), and the like quickly followed. Cylindr, by which most Czechs formerly understood only a silk hat, has become the silindr of the automobile, which, in the adjective silindrový, is compounded with Czech numerals to describe a car of so many cylinders. Džojraj and džojrajtovati came into use as soon as Americans began joy-riding. The Ford is usually fordka, but both in speech and print it appears also as fordovka, of the same declension, or ford, with the diminutive fordík. Flivr is a flivver, and to ride in one is flivrovati. The adjectives fordoy and flivroy follow as a matter of course. flechová (tin) lizí competes with dim lizínka.96
The divagations of a single loan-word are often very interesting. Consider, for example, bečlář (bachelor), pronounced batchelartch. It also appears as bečlák, apparently under the influence of the notion that -or is an agent termination, and there is a feminine form, bečlárka. When used as an adjective it becomes bečlácký or beéčlář-ský, and as a verb, meaning to cook for oneself (analogous to to batch), it is béčovati. But there are two other verbs, the first, bečlovati or beclařiti, signifying to be a bachelor, and the second, zbečlařiti signifying to be made a bachelor. The latter has produced a compound noun, zbečlařeny muž, meaning a man whose wife is away from home, and, by extension, a divorced man. Butlegář and butlegr (both forms of bootlegger) have been almost as productive. There is the noun butleg (bootleg), produced by back-formation, and there are the verbs butlegovati (to bootleg) and butlegariti (to be a bootlegger), the gerunds butlegování (bootlegging) and but-legaření (literally, bootleggering), and the compound butlegářství (the bootlegging trade). A Czech at home naturally finds this vocabulary puzzling. When a Czech version of a movie called “Man With Courage,” dealing with the life of the late Mayor Anton J. Čermak of Chicago and done by Czech-American actors in Hollywood, was exhibited in Prague, a large part of the dialogue baffled the Czech audiences, and a new recording had to be made in proper Czech.97
The Czechs at home also find it hard to understand the numerous translations of American phrases and idioms. They can make nothing of bílý mezek (white mule), slepé prasátko (blind pig), filmová hvězda (film star), velký klacek (big stick), ohrivá voda (firewater), bledá tvář (paleface) and bílý otrokář (white-slaver). The phrases that include loan-words puzzle them even more, e.g., pro-gresivní republikán (Progressive Republican), politický fence (political fences), stŕyc Sam (Uncle Sam), trafiční kop (traffic cop), kampánní komise (campaign committee), instruovaná delegace (instructed delegation), and běžeti pro ofis (to run for office). Many loan-words conflict in meaning with Czech words substantially identical. Thus konvikt, in Czech, is the house of a religious community, but in American-Czech it has the meaning of a convict. Similarly, detailní means retail in Czech, but detailed in American-Czech, and kolej means rut or track in Czech but college in Czech-American. The borrowings of most of the other immigrant languages are principally confined to the names of objects and acts unknown in the Old Country, and to current slang. But American-Czech, through the influence of the journalists and lecturers mentioned by Monsignor Dudek, has also taken in many somewhat pretentious words, e.g., bakalářství (baccalaureate), bakalář (bachelor of arts), šaráda (charade), komercni (commercial traveler), kooperace (coöperation), decentralisace (decentralization), and delikt (delinquency).
In 1930 there were 491,638 persons of Czech birth in the United States, 707,384 born in this country of Czech parentage, and 183,057 born here of partly Czech parentage, or 1,382,079 in all. Of those of Czech birth, 201,138 reported that their mother-tongue was Czech, and 240,196 that it was Slovak. The two languages are mutually intelligible, but they nevertheless differ considerably. The Czechs, says Monsignor Dudek, are scattered through virtually all the States of the Union. The largest colonies are in Illinois and Pennsylvania, with about 65,000 each. In Chicago alone there are 50,000 Czechs, and in 1931 one of them was elected mayor. They have nearly fifty publications in the United States, including six daily newspapers.98
b. Slovak
As I have just noted, Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible, though by no means identical. Indeed, all the Slavonic languages are very closely allied, and the marked differences which, in Western Europe, separate English from German and French from Spanish are not encountered. It has been said that “a peasant from Slovakia, which enjoys the benefit of a central position in the Slavonic territory, is understood by a Slav from any other country.”99 So far as I am aware, there is no printed study of the mutations of Slovak in this country, but Mr. James R. Istochin of Omaha, Neb., has kindly supplied me with the following notes:
As in Czech, loan-words from English are usually given Slovak inflections. A Slovak workman speaks of getting a džab v šape (job in the shop), vo majne (in the mine), or v koksárni (in the coke-yard), where he is supervised by a fórman (foreman) while working na mašine (on a machine), s píkom a šuflou (with pick and shovel), or s virbárom (with a wheelbarrow). If all is well, every two weeks comes peda (pay-day). Then he goes to the bank zkešovat ček (to cash the check). Afterward he proceeds do salony na konery bloku (to the saloon on the corner of the block) to get a glass or two of visky (whiskey), but, while he may accept the American páp (pop) as a chaser, when he wants beer he asks for the Slovakian pivo. Sometimes he has a kejs (case) or a kek (keg) delivered for home consumption. In Prohibition days he made his hómbru (home-brew) or bought munšajn (moonshine) from a butleger (bootlegger). However, not much of his money is spent for drink. After the necessary amounts for food, shelter, and clothing are deducted, most of his pay stays in the bank. His wife goes do štóru (to the store) to buy the household supplies. She asks for many staple items by their Slovakian names, but the grocerista (grocer) often has to supply such items as
: boksu pičesi (box of peaches), kenu korny (a can of corn), bonč binenes (a bunch of bananas), paje (pies), kendy (candy) and keksy (cakes). It is interesting to note that binenes is used as both singular or plural, but that pičesa, kenda, and either the masculine keks or the feminine keksa are singular. Although this Slovak housewife asks for milk by its correct Slovak name, mlieko, her units of liquid measure are the pajnta (pint), kvarta (quart), and galón (gallon). She buys her meats od bučera (from the butcher) or v bučerni (in the butcher-shop). Most articles of apparel are called by their Slovakian names, but I have heard shoppers ask for pence (pants), šusi (shoes), búoe (boots), zút (a suit), dres (a dress), sveder (a sweater), over-hozy (overalls), and even stakince (stockings). In waiting on them I have been guilty of asking Jaký sajz? (What size?) or Jaké numero? (What number?). They in turn have asked the prajs (price) and the quality of the štof (stuff — material).