(originally posted on my other blog, hybrid tumbleweed, 03-08-2006)
My tongue used to dance to the rhythm of three languages--Plautdietsch, German, and Spanish. But now, like a dancer out of practise, it often hesitates, even stumbles. Spanish was the first to fade, then German, and now even Plautdietsch, my mother tongue.
Plautdietsch, that old Low German language carried by the Russian Mennonites from the Vistula delta to Russia, North America and some Latin American countries, was the first language I learned. It was for us, as for the larger community of Russian Mennonites in Mexico, strictly an oral language. Writing was done in High German, but using the Gothic German script, especially by the Old Colony Mennonites.
Around the time of my birth my parents made the move from the Old Colony church to the EMMC, a modernised form of the faith. Then, when I was five, converted by German missionaries, my family made yet another church move. It was there, at the church-run school, that I learned both German and Spanish. German was the language of instruction in the school and was thundered from the pulpit as well. Instruction in Spanish, the language of our adopted country, began in grade two.
I was almost thirteen when we finally realised the dream of emigrating to Canada. I was thrown straight into school and picked English up rather quickly. It was my fourth language, and the one that would ultimately become my primary one.
Spanish, in which I never gained complete fluency, was the first to fade. I simply did not use it anymore. German began to fade after I left the church for good. I no longer had reason to speak it either. The first to go was my confidence in grammatical rules. Tenses, conjugations and declensions became confused. Then words began to sound a little strange. They didn't quite feel right in the mouth. Then words began to recede from memory. Interestingly, however, I can still pick up a book in German or Spanish, or a newspaper, and understand most of it. But I can hardly produce anymore.
Most upsetting to me is that the same process is beginning to happen now with my mother tongue. This also I don't have occasion to use all that much anymore. English is the common language in which my partner and I communicate (Arabic is her mother tongue), and Plautdietsch is, aside from my immediate family, inextricably tied to the Mennonite faith. After leaving both, the Mennonites (most of my relatives are still Mennonite) and the German church, I lost most contact with my relatives and their respective communities.
Plautdietsch is inextricably connected, at least as far as I am aware, to the Mennonite faith. I don't know of any non-religious people, or even non-Mennonite people that speak the language. Even some of the online Plautdietsch sites tend to reference religious materials and events. My last link with the language is through my parents. I have informed them of what is happening and will try to use Plautdietsch whenever I speak with them. Another difficulty that sometimes arises, getting in the way of even this, is that the language has not caught up to the modern world and tends to lack the words for an increasing number of things, both technological/scientific and social/cultural.
I am not giving up yet. Indeed, I intend to read more books in German and Spanish, books related to research I'm doing anyway. And as far as Plautdietsch is concerned, I will just have to speak it as often as I can.
(It has since been pointed out to me that there is indeed a Plautdietsch speaking population that is secular, yet has retained use of the language. See comment by Peeta Wiens--in Plautdietsch.)
