We’ll teach you Corsican
They set tires and trash containers on fire. They shot Molotov cocktails on the regional government office. They kept an hostage.
Steps behind the crowd, Mr Talamoni smiled while his troops were shouting. He was not smiling when they caught the administrative hostage.
Hard to believe they were fighting for our dear language.
The goal of this protest was to have kids learn Corsican as an obligatory part at our schools, while leaving the possibility for them to refuse learning it.
The current situation is that they’re free to learn Corsican or not, it is facultative. The proposed situation would be about the same: obligatory with an option to refuse VS facultative, where’s the big difference ? Ah yes, they had to make efforts to learn it, while now they’ll have to make efforts not to learn it.
That’s forcing a language down the kids’ throat. I love Corsican, but it’s not enough saying “kids you gotta learn Corsican”. If the Corsican speakers do not make kids want to learn the language, it’s like teaching them Latin.
It’s not enough that we have Corsican singers by the hundreds. We need more writers, poets, cultural figures. In the next 20 years the main actors of the 70′s Riacquistu will be dead, and they have been the main actors of the Corsican cultural scene for the past 20 years already. Fusina, Coti, Rogliano… who is going to take their place ?
Last thing, it is not enough teaching a language in school if hardly nobody speaks that language in the street. I understand that english, italian, spanish, aren’t spoken in the streets either, but Corsican is everything but a foreign language.
As stated in the office at my previous job: the Corsican child must learn Corsican with his parents and friends, and in the street; school must help the child to talk and write it right. It isn’t there to take the vacant role the parents left.
one response
I am Corsican and Hispanic. My family speaks English more than anything but we made it a point to speak Spanish enough so that I could learn it. Even though my Spanish is not 100% perfect, I can speak it, read and write it well enough and I can pass it on to my children in the future. I really believe that you should be proud of your culture and therefore learn at least some of your homeland’s language.
My great grandfather was Corsican but emmigrated to Puerto Rico and spoke only Spanish from then on…big mistake. Though I’m glad he embraced Puerto Rican culture he really should of passed on the Corsican language to my grandmother who would of taught it to my mother and myself. Now Im struggling trying to find tools to learn a language I could of just learned by ear from my family the way I did with Spanish.
Come on Corsica….be proud to speak your language….it’s beautiful!!!!!!
#1 Rosie Prudente — 2007/06/25 at 5:23
Your words