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To: Marysecretary

No, by the time it came to the relatives that I knew and remember, they had long ago, stopped speaking in anything other than English...

A little anecdote...my hubby was raised by his Sicilian grandparents who came to America, from Sicily when they were already married with a child...and they always spoke Sicilian at home, tho they encouraged their children to learn and speak English...now the hubby, their first grandchild, was raised by these grandparents, so naturally he was raised speaking Sicilian...of course, he learned English, by playing with his neighborhood friends, and in school...but Sicilian remained his native tongue, and of course, he spoke it fluently, while his grandparents were still alive, as that is primarily all they understood...

Of course, he spoke English flawlessly as well....he was bi-lingual...after we were married for a few months, my husband became very ill, with extremely high fevers, and he was delirious...when he spoke, I could not understand him at all...I thought he was just speaking gibberish, due to his high fever...but then I would every so often recognize a word or phrase here or there..then I realized in his delirium, he was speaking his first native tongue, Sicilian...he also used to talk a lot in his sleep...but there again, it was always in Sicilian...heck, I could never figure out what he was talking about...

Today with his grandparents gone, he no longer uses his Sicilian, tho he still retains, a pretty good understanding of the language, when it is spoken...


11,660 posted on 07/07/2008 12:38:57 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom
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To: andysandmikesmom

I used to translate for my mother to my father’s friends when I was very young, under 5 years old. Then I would translate to my mother what they said. I lost much of it when we moved into town and started school. My sister thought in Norwegian and had a difficult time in school because of it. It’s interesting being brought up with a foreign language. I still remember quite a lot when I start talking or listening to another Norwegian. Kinda fun. Thanks for the interesting story about your husband.


11,687 posted on 07/07/2008 7:24:49 PM PDT by Marysecretary (.GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL)
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