JeannineZ
2 Jan 2018 #121
@kaprys
I looked it up. Belarusian for aunt is ciotka. So it's close. I know that whatever my grandmother spoke was not quite Belarusian. And maybe White Russian is not the right name either. Her name was Wojciechowski so I feel sure she was Polish -- and her immigration paperwork says Poland. But I know she didn't speak straight Polish because she was not fully accepted by the Polish community in her area due to her dialect -- and that was definitely a sour point for her. She felt shunned and embarrassed. She was also not educated. She only made it to 6th grade (in the US -- she had no school in Poland). Her family was very poor so it is possible that she spoke a dialect only used by the lower class -- which might explain her perceived shunning. I don't really know. It is interesting that someone else who was from a similar place in PA used the same words that my family uses -- lacking the a's -- for aunt and grandmother. For paternal grandmother we say Babka. I don't know what it is -- not quite Polish, not quite Belarusian. Something similar. My father's father was Polish. My father never new his grandfathers, but he spoke only Polish to his paternal grandmother. My father's mother was Ukrainian. And my father spoke only Ukrainian to his maternal grandmother. His grandmothers could not (and would not) speak to each other. Now he only speaks English. He lost both languages when he lost his grandmothers. Pretty sad. But I notice that he can still say mass in Ukrainian when we go back to PA and attend the Ukrainian Catholic church -- which is not often at all -- but he grew up in that church until he was 17. My maternal grandmother (babci) always referred to my father as "the Russian" -- even though he is really 1/2 Ukrainian and 1/2 Polish. Strange. When I try to ask my father what language my mother's family spoke, all he can say is "some form of Polish". My father's family has only ever used English words with us. I guess the whole Ukrainian / Polish mix was a divide in the family so they spoke only English after the grandmothers passed.
I looked it up. Belarusian for aunt is ciotka. So it's close. I know that whatever my grandmother spoke was not quite Belarusian. And maybe White Russian is not the right name either. Her name was Wojciechowski so I feel sure she was Polish -- and her immigration paperwork says Poland. But I know she didn't speak straight Polish because she was not fully accepted by the Polish community in her area due to her dialect -- and that was definitely a sour point for her. She felt shunned and embarrassed. She was also not educated. She only made it to 6th grade (in the US -- she had no school in Poland). Her family was very poor so it is possible that she spoke a dialect only used by the lower class -- which might explain her perceived shunning. I don't really know. It is interesting that someone else who was from a similar place in PA used the same words that my family uses -- lacking the a's -- for aunt and grandmother. For paternal grandmother we say Babka. I don't know what it is -- not quite Polish, not quite Belarusian. Something similar. My father's father was Polish. My father never new his grandfathers, but he spoke only Polish to his paternal grandmother. My father's mother was Ukrainian. And my father spoke only Ukrainian to his maternal grandmother. His grandmothers could not (and would not) speak to each other. Now he only speaks English. He lost both languages when he lost his grandmothers. Pretty sad. But I notice that he can still say mass in Ukrainian when we go back to PA and attend the Ukrainian Catholic church -- which is not often at all -- but he grew up in that church until he was 17. My maternal grandmother (babci) always referred to my father as "the Russian" -- even though he is really 1/2 Ukrainian and 1/2 Polish. Strange. When I try to ask my father what language my mother's family spoke, all he can say is "some form of Polish". My father's family has only ever used English words with us. I guess the whole Ukrainian / Polish mix was a divide in the family so they spoke only English after the grandmothers passed.