American Language (130 page)

there will be talk of
flór
(floor),
štepse
(tairs),
šlejt
or
šingl rúf
(slate or shingle roof),
fens
(fence),
penta
(paint),
bilding permit
(building permit),
inšurens
(insurance),
dýd
(deed), and
morgič
(mortgage). In the Summer there is always a
piknik
(picnic) or two. Sometimes it is some distance from home, necessitating the purchase of
tikety
(tickets) to ride on the
trén
(train). Of course, one may drive one’s
automobil
— my grandfather used to call it
antonobil
—, which requires a quantity
gazolínu
(gasoline). Most often the
bojs
(boy, son) is the chauffeur. Some of the seasonal outdoor sports are
bejsbal
(baseball),
futbal
(football), and
skejtovanie
(skating). The Slovaks have not been much attracted by golf and tennis.

In a recent editorial in
Jednota
(Middletown, Pa.) published by the F. C. S. U., I find
kooperácia
(coöperation),
konvencia
(convention),
direktne
(directly),
systém
(system), and
organizácia
(organization). The same editorial contains
čens
(chance, opportunity), although the word is enclosed in quotation marks and is followed by a good Slovakian word in parentheses. Another loan-word is
overcrowded
. This is also set off by quotation marks, but is not followed by a Slovakian equivalent. In the same issue of
Jednota
a column of personal observations written in a lighter vein contains such borrowings as
fulovat
’ (to fool),
okej
(O.K.), and
džungle
(jungle), as well as the expletives
well
and
šúr
(sure).

A search through the advertising columns of the Slovak papers reveals even more Americanisms than are to be found in the editorial columns. In a list of the body types of a certain make of automobile advertised in
Národné Noviny
(Pittsburgh), published by the N. S. S., are:
športový roadster so zadným sediskom
(sport roadster with back —
i.e.
, rumble-seat),
pät’-pasaži-orový coupe
(five-passenger coupé), and
zmenitel’ny cabriolet
(convertible cabriolet). When used as a substantive the name of the car may appear as
Chevroletka
or
Fordka
. A comparison of the translations of an identical advertisement reveals that while
Jednota
uses
produkty, originálny
, and
broadcasting
for products, original, and broadcasting,
Národné Noviny
uses
výrobky, pôvodný
, and
rozhlasovacíí
.

Thus,
importirovat
’ and
eksportirovat
’ contend with
vvozit
’ and
vyvozit
’ for the privilege of representing to import and to export;
annonsirovat
’ and
objavljaf
represent to announce, and
registrirovat
’ and
zapissat’sja
represent to sign up, to register one’s self. Such a combination as
annulirovat’ naturaliza-tsionnye sertifikaty
(to annul naturalization certificates) would be rare, to say the least, in Russia, though the writer has here obviously struggled for correctness; otherwise he would have written
sertifikejty
instead of
sertifikaty
.
¹⁰²

The Russian-American New Yorker lives
v optaune
(in the uptown)…. His apartment is in a
desjatifamil’nyi dom
(ten-family house) at 67
Vest 123 strit, ist of Brodvej
. There is an
élevator
in the building. The apartment is very
ap tu dejt
(up to date); it is furnished with
rejdiejtory
(radiators) and a
refridzherejtor
(refrigerator). Several of the rooms have
okna na front
(windows on the front); these he calls
frontovye komnaty
(front-rooms). In the living-room there is a
vik
or
viktrola
, and in the kitchen a
garbich kén
.… [His] wife is also quite
ap tu dejt
. When she wants to
imet’ ljonch
or
ljonche-vat
’ (have lunch), she calls up another
lédi
(lady) and they go to the
drogstor
and consume
séndvichi
(sandwiches),
kejk
(cake), and
ajskrim
(ice-cream), smoking
sigarety
furiously the while and discussing the cost of
potejta
(potatoes), and whether to
mufovat
’ in view of the unsuitability of the neighborhood. She boasts of her
boj
(boy) in
khaj-skul
(high-school), who plays football and made a
tochdaun
(touchdown) last Thanksgiving Day, but who is
nevertheless distraught because he had a
fajt
(fight) with his
gjorla
(girl). The
gjorla
is
ku-ku
(cuckoo) anyway, and the mother thinks of advising her son not to mix himself up in any
monki bisnes
(monkey business)…. In the evening the Russian comes home to his
flét
(flat)…. He has a
kara
(car) and the way it eats up
gazolin
and
ojl
is frightful.… A dark interlude in his life was the time he had a run-in with a
kop
; he was driving through a
uan-vej strit
(one-way street), and was exceeding the
spidlimit
. Moreover, he had left his
lajsens
at home on the piano, and the
kop
gave him a
tiket
.

The Ukrainian in America makes a copious use of English loan-words. Some of them are the names of things with which he was unfamiliar at home, and others are words that he must use in his daily traffic with Americans. Usually, he tries to bring these loans into harmony with the Ukrainian inflectional system. Thus, he forces most loan-nouns to take on grammatical gender. Those that he feels to be feminine he outfits with the Ukrainian feminine ending,
-a, e.g., dreska
(dress),
vinda
(window),
hala
(hall),
grocernya
(grocery store),
buchernya
(butcher’s store),
strita
(street),
pikcha
(picture).
Mechka
is the match which makes a fire but match in the meaning of contest of skill is a masculine noun
mech
. Some nouns are felt to be plural and are outfitted with plural endings. Thus
furniture
becomes
fornichi
, which is equivalent to “pieces of furniture,”
pinatsy
is a Ukrainian adaptation of
peanuts
, and
shusy
of
shoes
, and
Shkrenty
is the plural form of the name of the city of Scranton.
Kendi
(candy), is declined like a plural noun because its ending is the typical plural ending of Ukrainian nouns, and it reminds the Ukrainian of his name for
candy
, the plural
tsukorky. Blubery
(blueberries), is also plural.

The adjective must be recast also to denote by its ending the number and gender. For this reason the Ukrainian does not use many English adjectives, for they do not lend themselves easily to such changes. He has adopted, however, the following:
faytersky
(of fighting character),
bomersky
(of the character of a bum),
gengstersky
(like a gangster),
sylkovy
(made of silk),
volna-tovy
(made of walnut),
bosuyuchy
or
bosivsky
(bossing, domineering). Adopted verbs, too, require a great deal of dressing up to fit them for use in the Ukrainian language,
e.g., bosuvaty
(to boss),
klinuvaty
(to clean),
pon-chuvaty
(to punch),
laykuvaty
(to like),
trubluvaty
(to trouble),
baderuvaty
(to bother),
bostuvaty
(to bust),
shapuvaty
(to shop),
stykuvaty
(to stick),
faytuvatysya
(to fight with),
ringuvaty
(to ring),
swimuvaty
(to swim),
peyntuvaty
(to paint),
bonduvaty
(to bond),
bayluvaty
(to bail) and
djompaty
(to jump).
Parkuvaty karu
is the common American Ukrainian for to park the car.

Sometimes a Ukrainian word is changed under the influence of an American word, e.g.,
lezhukh
(loafer), from
lezhaty
(to lie resting) becomes
leyzukh
, to emphasize its kinship with
lazy
. Some loan-words, in spite of all efforts, refuse to be changed. This is true of those that have endings strange to the Ukrainian,
e.g.
, those ending in
-y: city, lobby, party, lady, country
, etc., which by their ending suggest to a Ukrainian either a masculine adjective or a plural noun, but evidently are neither one nor the other. Hence the Ukrainian feels reluctant to inflect
Chicago, cemetery
and
Yankee
. He experiences still greater uneasiness with composite words:
jitney-boss, city-hall, Kansas City, Jersey
City, Niagara Falls, cream-cheese
(pot-cheese, which he knows, he will call by the Ukrainian word,
syr), piece-work, Tammany Hall, hold-up, card-party, bridge-party, rocking-chair, bathing-suit, ice-cream, high-school, Sing Sing, lolly-pop, knickerbockers, ginger-ale, saleslady.
Some adjectives, too, balk at inflection,
e.g., jealous (vin tak jeles, vona taka jeles), easy, crazy
. Some words lead a double life.
Engine
, for instance, now passes as a male, assuming the form
injay
, and now as a female,
injaya
.

Not infrequently the American cuckoo accepted into the Ukrainian nest ejects some other cuckoo, hatched out of an egg deposited by the German, French, or Italian. Thus, in American-Ukrainian,
parasola
is replaced by
am-brela, kelner
by
veyter
(waiter),
buchhalter
by
bookkeeper, fryzier
by
barber
, bilet by
tyket
(ticket),
umbra
by
sheyd
(shade, especially lamp-shade), and
velotsyped
(velocipede) by
bysykel, bitsykel
, or even
bike
. Under the influence of American many Ukrainian words of foreign origin acquire additional meanings. Thus
kontrola
, which in the Old Country meant auditing, examination of accounts, assumes in America also the meaning of directing, regulating, and still later that of checking, as in the phrase
kontrola budyakiv
(weed control).
Konventsya
, which in Ukrainian means an agreement between nations, in American acquires the meaning of a gathering of a party, etc.
Mashy-nist
loses the Ukrainian meaning of locomotive engineer, and
operator
the meaning of surgeon. Each of them acquires the meanings of those words in America.
Kompania
in the Old Country means associates, a company of soldiers; in America the word comes to mean also a corporation. Likewise, the adjective
seriozny
, under the influence of American, comes to be used not only in reference to people, meaning serious, but also of conditions, meaning grave. Even original Ukrainian words become affected by this process,
e.g.
, the old Ukrainian word
vartuvaty
(to be worth), acquires the American idiomatic meaning of to have property of value.

Once the Ukrainian adopts an American word and then uses that word in a phrase which reminds him of some standard American phrase, the whole phrase rushes into his speech. Thus, having adopted
train
, he cannot refuse the phrases,
to get a train, to catch a train
, and so he translates them:
braty tren, zlovyty tren
, which to a person versed in Ukrainian can mean only to get hold of a train, and to overtake the train, respectively. Having borrowed
picture
and dressed it in Ukrainian costume as
pikcha
, he cannot shut the door in the face of the phrase
to take a picture
, and so he has
braty pikchu
, and also
braty dobru pikchu
(to take a good picture). Thus he has admitted such phrases as
sluzhyty na jury
(to serve on a jury),
distaty herkot
(to get a hair-cut),
pity na relief
(to go on relief),
dopustyty do bary
(to admit to the bar).

Many American phrases are translated bodily into Ukrainian, often against the well-established rules of the language. The Ukrainian who knows English
is likely to say
kozdy odyn
, when
kozdy
is sufficient and correct, evidently translating the English
every one
. He replaces
rozsmishyty koho
with
robyty koho smiaty
, which is a word-for-word translation of the phrase
to make one laugh
, but a horror in Ukrainian. He contracts the sentence “Ya bachyv jak vin ishov” into “Ya bachyv yeho ity,” which is an apish imitation of the English phrase, “I saw him go.” He translates the phrase, “I cannot help it” into “Ya ne mozhu pomohty,” as if the word
help
here meant to render assistance. He says, “Ya ne mozhlyvy preyty,” which is a literal translation of “I am unable to come.” “My maly dobry chas” follows word by word “We had a good time,” and would be unintelligible in the Old Country. “Ya rad vas bachyty nazad” follows word for word the greeting, “I am glad to see you back.” “Bery svey chas!” is a similar translation of “Take your time!” and “Trymayte drit!” of “Hold the wire.”

The American-Ukrainian changes many Ukrainian idioms. Under the American influence he forgets the phrase,
robyty oko do koho
and uses
robyty ochy do koho
(to make eyes to one). The Ukrainian phrase is to make an eye to one. The Ukrainian phrase,
ne spuskaty ochey z koho
(not to close one’s eyes to) becomes
derzhaty oko na kim
(to keep one’s eye on). The idiomatic expression
spushcheny nis
(the drooping nose) is displaced by the American
long face
(
dovhe lytse
). Speaking of his son’s age, the American-Ukrainian translates the American idiomatic sentence, “He is six years old,” by “Vin ye shist lit stary,” though no Ukrainian at home would refer to a child of six as
old
. His idiomatic phrase speaks of
having …
years
.

The American-Ukrainian begins to add possessive pronouns in phrases which do not require them in Standard Ukrainian, often with a humorous effect for those who are still not initiated into the mysteries of the American-Ukrainian language. To use, for instance, the possessive
svoyu
in the sentence “Vin kuryt svoyu lulku” (He is smoking his pipe), may suggest a question, “Whose pipe do you expect him to smoke if not his own?” The Ukrainian in the Old Country would not use the possessive pronoun in the phrase
zatyraty svoyi ruky
(to rub one’s hands); could you rub anybody else’s hands but your own? Again, the possessive pronouns in the sentence, “Win derzhyt svoi ruky v svoiy kysheni” (He is holding
his
hands in
his
pocket), may suggest the suspicion that habitually he is holding in his pocket somebody’s else’s hands or has his hands in somebody else’s pockets.

There is noticeable in American-Ukrainian a certain decay of synonyms. Fine distinctions between them are obliterated.
Divka
, which corresponds more or less to
maid
, is used also for
girl, daughter
and
sweetheart
. “Ya lublu vashu divku” (I love your maid), is rather a rude way of saying, “I love your daughter.” Further degeneration of the language is noticeable in the loss of distinction between the verbs of duration, iteration, and conclusion,
e.g., ity, pity
and
khodyty
(to be going, to be gone, to go);
zhynuty
and
zahynuty
(to die and to disappear). Decay is also promoted by the fact that English loan-adjectives cannot be inflected. After a certain time even the Ukrainian-born American will fail to inflect the adjective made of a proper noun but will follow the simple English device of placing it before another noun and letting it serve thus as adjective; in Standard Ukrainian
na rozi Napoleon ulytsi, do Notr Deym shpytalu, z Dubyuk universytetu, Richelieu vyshyvky
would all have to change the first noun into an adjective form or place it after the other noun in the genitive case.

The influence of English is also felt in the acquisition by the American-
Ukrainian of the feeling of the need of the article. He begins to punctuate his language with
toy, ta, to, ti
in all those passages where in English he would use the definite article. Also, he begins to roll his r’s after the American fashion even when speaking Ukrainian. Those who were born here find it difficult to enunciate certain typically Ukrainian sounds, such as guttural
kh
. Thus
mukha
(the fly), degenerates into
muha, khochu
into
hochu, tykho
into
tyho
, and even
khata
into
hata
, though
hata
in Ukrainian means a dam and
khata
a hut.
¹⁰⁵