Greater than 7,000 languages at the moment exist on this planet, of which an astonishing 700 are spoken in New York Metropolis — greater than anyplace else on earth.
“Language and music are transportable homelands,” clarify the hosts of “Language Metropolis,” an eye-opening and entertaining present being offered totally free by Sunday at The Glade, one of many two outside theaters on Little Island.
It’s impressed by “Language Metropolis: The Struggle to Protect Endangered Mom Tongues in New York,” (Atlantic Month-to-month Press, 432 pages), an enchanting new ebook by linguist Ross Perlin, who teaches at Columbia and co-directs the non-profit Endangered Language Alliance. The present, just like the ebook (as Perlin explains in it) “is about probably the most linguistically various metropolis within the historical past of the world: its previous, current and future.” Each are additionally a plea to maintain all the languages within the metropolis alive. Their best argument for doing so are the half dozen solid members, now New Yorkers — poets, singers and musicians – who carry out on stage of their native tongue.
Kewulay Kamara, a “finah” (keeper of his tradition) from Sierra Leone recites his personal poetry in Kuranko, a language that is likely one of the many inside the Manding language household (comparable to Bambara, Jula, Maninka, and Mandinka) which all collectively are spoken by some 40 million individuals all through West Africa. Kuranko is just not a written language, however for the sake of the present, Kamara’s phrases in transliteration and in English translation are projected onto separate screens, as he recites his poems, the primary in regards to the first time he noticed snow, and, later, a couple of lady from his homeland named Kani Kurya who “disappeared” in the course of the time of the trans-Atlantic slave commerce. That poem ends:
Nde, Kewulɛn,
Kani Kurya mamanɛ, mamanɛ
Le kume ke for la wo
Kani Kurya a yan
I, Kewulen,
grandchild of Kani Kurya’s grandchild,
am telling you,
Kani Kurya is right here
Irwin Sánchez, recites his poetry in Nahuatl, probably the most generally spoken indigenous language in Mexico, a rustic with an estimated 282 indigenous languages. Sanchez, one of many six new-New Yorkers profiled at size in Perlin’s ebook, is a chef initially from Puebla, whose revival of indigenous Mexican cooking (full with meals names in Nahuatl) was nominated for a James Beard Award.
Accompanied by Vasilios Koutsoumbaris on a Ntauli drum, Dimistris Stefanidis performed vigorous conventional melodies with a stringed instrument known as the lyra and sang in a language known as Pontiaká, or Pontic Greek, however very completely different from the Greek of Athens; fewer than 300,000 had been estimated to have spoken twenty years in the past; it’s certainly nonetheless fewer now. The Pontic Greek group, which originated in what’s now Turkey, has lengthy struggled to outlive — many had been killed within the Ottoman genocide – which is mirrored within the lyrics of one among their songs, Patrida m’araevo se (I’m trying to find you my homeland):
I’ve constructed 5 homes and I used to be thrown out from all of them
I’m a refugee from start, my God, I’m on the sting of insanity
I’m on the lookout for you, my homeland, like a cursed man
I’m a Greek overseas, and a foreigner in Greece
Tenzin Donsel, accompanied by Tenzin Chunney on a stringed instrument known as a dranyen, sings in Tibetan a number of attractive previous folks songs from far western Tibet, from a style referred to as Nangma toeshey, widespread at events, weddings, and on YouTube amongst individuals from throughout the Nice Himalayas. They’re among the many latest additions to New York; particularly Queens (as we’re instructed, and likewise proven, in one of many a number of movies within the present, which all appeared at greatest pointless.)
Every of those performers is launched by our three hosts – Julia Gu, Malcolm Opoku, and Shubhra Prakash – who, in-between the songs and poems, inform a story of New York by its languages, beginning with the “authentic language.” Lenape lives on in lots of place names right here (Gowanus, Rockaway, Maspeth) however at the moment is the primary language solely of a lone lady in her eighties dwelling in a small Canadian city, though there may be an effort to revive it.
From there, they undergo historic/linguistic/immigrant milestones. A few of them are acquainted to those that bear in mind their faculty historical past courses (1624, Nieuw Amsterdam, based by the Dutch, however many weren’t Dutch and didn’t converse it; “the primary 400 New Amsterdammers spoke a reported 18 languages.”) Most aren’t so acquainted, particularly within the current day, when “half of all New Yorkers converse a language apart from English at residence,” and new communities have new names for previous neighborhoods, comparable to “Registan, a reputation which connects Rego Park, Queens with a sq. in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.”
The hosts drive residence this range with their very own tales. Opoku, for instance, introduces himself: “I’m Malcolm in English, however in Akan—probably the most broadly spoken language in Ghana—I’m known as Kwame, as boys born on Saturdays are. That is how naming works for Akan individuals: Monday boys are Kojo and Monday ladies are Adwoa….”
About midway by this 90-minute present, Prakash says: “Practically 200,000 asylum seekers have arrived in simply the previous couple of years, an unprecedented problem for town.” It’s only a transient remark on this present, in sharp distinction to the best way this “problem” drives the nationwide dialog. “Language Metropolis,” amongst its different charms, presents a deeply refreshing method to consider the arrival of recent individuals, and peoples, in New York.
“Diaspora: dia spora, a Greek phrase for scattering, is now a common situation,” Shubhra Prakash tells us at one level, and the others chime in with the phrase in three different world languages – which is to say, New York languages.
“Language Metropolis” is free at The Glade for 2 extra performances, Saturday and Sunday. No tickets needed. Simply present up; first come, first served.
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