Calvin Synod Herald, 1984 (84. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1984-12-01 / 6. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD-4 — REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA THE GREAT PROBLEM OF BILINGUALISM Lecture by Dr. Stephen Szabó, delivered at the Fall-meeting of Lakeside Classis, Calvin Synod, U.C.C. in Cleveland on Nov. 13,1984. Endre Ady at the Eve of World War I — in 1914 — wrote these lines: “Let’s now look at those who will finish our fate, Our foretold and Fate-sent executioners; Magyars are running into scattering and disintegration! ” The running into scattering — of course — started long before that, in the last decade of the last century. Attila József well said: “And tottered out into America a million and a half of our countrymen.” We, Hungarians, are indeed the people of dispersion, scattered all over, living in diaspora, and rightfully so. There are 16 million Jews on earth today. Out of that 3 and half million live in their home-land, Israel, and 12 and half million scattered all over the world. This is well-known to all. But what is not well-known at all is the fact that we, Hungarians, are the second most-dispersed people on the globe. There are 20 million Hungarians on earth today: out of that 10 million in Hungary proper and 10 million scattered all over. But this is only our primary dispersion. The secondary is our continuous scattering in the diaspora. The most eloquent illustration of this secondary scattering of ours is one of the funerals in our Cleveland Church I conducted before my retirement: Géczi Nénis’ funeral. She was almost 100 when she died, and had as many descendents as the number of her years: 8 children, 34 grandchildren, 60 greatgrand-children. They were all present at the church, but not one of the one hundred came from Cleveland or even from the State of Ohio. All of them from other states of the Union. Our life in America is approaching the one hundred year mile-stone. Our churches in Cleveland and Pittsburgh 93, Lorain, Toledo and many others celebrated the 80th, just recently Detroit, on Nov. 11, 1984. All our churches — with the exception of only one — are still bilingual. In some churches the Hungarian is still stronger, in some the English is more so: but the Hungarian language is still with us. Among the many special problems that we have, bilingualism is still the number one. And bilingualism at the present arrived to its most delicate stage in the life of our congregations. Never before was the language such a sensitive issue in our life that it is now! Therefore never before did our congregational leaders need as much wisdom, tolerance, and understanding regarding Bilingualism as at the present! “História est Magister Vitae!”. “History is the teaching master of life!” What does history teach us now at this cross-road of our life? It is well for us to learn some lessons from the past of some of our sister churches facing the problem of bilingualism before us. Let me just mention two: the Dutch and the German of the same family of the Reformed Faith with different mother-tongues. They are the closest ones to us. The Dutch Reformed Church in America was organized 3 and half centuries ago, the German 2 and half centuries ago. That means that the Dutch preceeded us by 2 and half centuries and the Germans by one and a half. Both went through the same delicate period long ago, that we are lacing at the present. Both lived their life depending on the mother-church in Europe for almost a century before they became churches in America living on their own. Both were supported by the mother-church in Holland, strangely enough the German as well as the Dutch. Both for a whole century used the mother-tongue exclusively. Both after stormy preludes turned over to the use of English exclusively from the former Dutch or German. In the transition period they lost a number of churches: the Germans more, the Dutch less in number. For over the last one hundred years both are one language churches, the language — of course is English. We, Hungarian Reformed Churches in America, introduced the English language much sooner than the others, therefore — we are proud to say — we did not lose a single congregation because of language in the transition. We did become bilingual churches long before any others did in time. We started to use the English language even before half-century mile-stone of our existence here. Most of us do not realize any more how difficult it was and what a delicate period that was in our life here in America. Many of our good lay-leaders in those times attacked their own forward-looking pastors, saying: “We are Magyars! No need here for any other language!” I can speek on the subject from my own personal experiences. It was forty years ago that I myself started the every Sunday English service in our Toledo church. Five years after in our First Church in Cleveland. I had to remove the Sunday-School superintendent from office who refused to let the English language be introduced as a parallel language for the children in the classes. “We are Magyars! The teaching in this school will be Magyar and nothing else!” Bilingualism in its conception period had a rough road to travel! Pastors in all our congregations had to face a real problem! Many of our otherwise wellmeaning lay-leaders simply did not understand that introducing English then was a working tool and instrument of our survival. Not introducing English at that time would have resulted in closing the doors of many of our churches and silencing the bells in many of our church-towers. In delicate periods of transition nothing is more important than equal use of both languages, the balance of bilingualism. It was at the half-century mile-stone and it is more so at the century mile-stone! Not keeping that balance in sight caused a lot of unnecessary pain then and will cause severe punishment at the present! People living in the diaspora of bilingualism do regard the beloved mother-tongue as a kind of sacred reality. In 1
