Documentation of Arbresh needed in AL, USA


Date Submitted:	22-May-2009
From:	Isabel Brown
Subject:	Documentation of Arbresh needed in AL, USA
Contact Email:	click here to access email


Notice:	A colleague of mine in the College of Computer Sciences, Dr. Michael Doran ( mdoran@usouthal.edu) is faced with the following dilemma involving the endangered language of Arbresh. I copy his entire message to me rather than paraphrasing it so that you would get a full feel of the situation. I am sure that among you, your faculty, and/or your students there is someone absolutely ready to tackle this poignant issue. What follows is form Dr. Michael Doran: My grandparents came from a small town in Sicily, Piana degli Albanesi, but were not Sicilian or Italian. Their culture was Arbresh dating back to the 1400's. Even after almost 400 years in Sicily they kept their religion, culture, only married within the culture, and had a distinct language based on Albanian. It is very Slavic and has little in common with Italian. Even after coming to the US in the 1800's and early 1900's they maintained their culture forming societies based on their hometown, often only married those in the culture and kept the language. The largest groups settled in New Orleans. In fact there are more Arbresh in NOLA than in the towns back in Sicily. Now over 100 years later the NOLA groups are not pure bred anymore and the language is not spoken. I found an article that speaks about how the language is dying even back in Sicily. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001387/138795E.pdf#page=103 Here's where my family comes in.... My mother and aunt are pure bred 2nd generation Arbresh. Both my grandparents were pure bred Arbresh born in Piana. My mother and aunt speak the language as part of normal conversation. In fact they speak it more than they do English now that they are in an assisted living home. Growing up as a kid and living with them and my grandparents I learned enough Arbresh to survive and know when I was in trouble. As my mother and aunt are aging, mother is 84 and Aunt Anna is 90, I have moved them to an assisted living home here in Mobile. In fact, the staff tells me how they mumble strange sounds all the time, however, they are speaking to each other in Arbresh so no one knows what they are talking about. In my family they are the last pure bred Arbresh and the last that can really speak the language. In NOLA now there are few pure bred left especially by my generation and fewer if any that can really speak the language. Even though my mother and aunt are still in relatively good health I know they will not live forever and reading this article really made me realize how tragic their death will be since it will also mark a lose of connection to a 600 year Arbresh history and language and the migration of that culture to NOLA and the US. Here's my question...... Would anyone be interested in studying and working with my mother and aunt to capture attributes of the Arbresh language and culture. I know all the stories and can speak choppy bits and pieces but they are fluent. The big problem as the article points out is that it is not a documented written language. No one in my family not even my grandparents could write it. My grandparents only learned to read and write English after they came to the US. Not only is this interesting to me from a family point but also it appears to be a valid language and culture research area. Thanks for your consideration and I would love to chat with you or anyone else interested in this research.