by Katie Zavadski
Alina Dizik and her family fled the former Soviet Union as Jewish refugees, and she broke away from the language and culture. Yet she recently decided to raise her newborn daughter bilingual:
So, even though I find it simpler to speak English with my Soviet-born husband, I’ve been speaking only Russian to our child—and it’s surprisingly comforting. I find that I want her to know the language, after all. There’s an innate part of me that identifies with the language and feels like I can express my love for her better in Russian, the language my own family still uses to speak to me. Subconsciously, it’s the language I associate with love and family, regardless of politics. And I’d hate to watch her grandparents and great-grandparents struggle to find appropriate words during their own conversations with her if they had to be in English, a language that still feels foreign to them. Her being able to communicate with our family is important to me.
I’ve also realized that I have a personal connection with the language that I can’t just erase. The words mean something. The bluntness of some Russian phrases makes it easier to say what I really mean, even if those same words sound harsh in English. So what if it sounds (to those who don’t speak the language) like we’re constantly berating each other? Sometimes we are. Speaking Russian has given me thicker skin and a constant insight into a culture that I don’t always love. But even with my own atrocious American accent, speaking Russian still feels like home.
She worries that her “American daughter will start kindergarten with a Russian accent.” I’ll have her know that’s nothing to worry about—they tell me I didn’t speak a word of English before entering kindergarten, but I can’t recall ever thinking in another language. A child’s mind is an amazing thing.
But her first concern has a second element: grandparents adapt, and grandchildren pick up scattered phrases. The trouble comes with the extended family. Perhaps Dizik’s, like my own, is scattered across Israel, Europe, and parts of the former USSR. How can we maintain connections without this lingua franca of our ancestors?
The Dish 