Giving voice to their cultures

Watertown Splash survey finds nearly two dozen languages in WMS halls

SOPHIA K., Watertown Splash staff

Danilo Ibner has been multilingual his whole life. Ibner speaks Portuguese at home all the time with his mother because she doesn’t want him to forget the language, but with his dad and sister he speaks English. When he was born, his father was not present in the country (Brazil). The Ibner family moved back to Massachusetts when Danilo was about 6 and he was learning English.

Ibner said he likes being able to speak two languages because “you’re able to speak with a larger variety of people.”  Ibner said he feels “comfortable because a lot of my friends speak Portuguese.”

At home, Ibner said, “I mostly speak English,” but, if given the chance, he said he would want to learn Armenian because knowing more languages gets you into a better school and helps get better jobs.

Ibner is one of the many students at Watertown Middle School who speak another language besides English. From the 164 kids who responded to a schoolwide survey conducted by the Watertown Splash, 22 other languages were spoken, including Spanish (47 students), Portuguese (11), Pashto (5), Punjabi (3), and Polish (1).

This reason, speaking different languages to get into a good school, was a shared by others. Ayah Roda loves speaking Arabic and was fluent in English when she was 7. She is not afraid to admit that one of the reasons she likes speaking another language is so she can talk about things without other people listening. The main language in the Roda home is Arabic, but that is not the only language Roda can speak.

Next year she is planning on taking Spanish and French at Watertown High School, so in all she would speak four languages. It’s a Muslim tradition that you’re supposed to make a trip to Mecca and Ayah plans on doing this, but, she said, “I’m a little scared of getting trampled.”

Another bilingual student is Anna Avram. She speaks Russian and did not learn English until she was 7 years old, the same year that she moved to America from Moldova. Anna said she likes the idea of speaking two languages.

“It feels good because you can help people if they do not understand something,” she said.

Also, Anna is interested in speaking Spanish as a third language because a lot of people here speak it. Anna visits her home country every summer because her grandparents live there and she has two dogs that are very dear to her there. Even though it is a seven-hour plane ride from Boston to Germany, then two hours to Moldova, if that is what it takes to see her home, Anna is more than happy to do it.

Marianna Janikian is another WMS student who speaks another language. Janikian speaks fluent Armenian inside and outside school. Janikian likes speaking another language because she can have a private conversation. Janikian said she learned English first, but started speaking Armenian when she about 2 years old. In her household, her family speaks mostly Armenian and some English.

Janikian said that she does not feel weird speaking Armenian because Watertown has a lot of Armenians. When asked if she had any interest in speaking another language, Janikian said, “I want to learn Spanish as another language because it will look good on my college application.”

A wish that Janikian has is to go to Armenia because she has never been there and it would be nice to see where her culture came from. As you can see, a lot of kids at Watertown Middle School speak different languages, which makes the school a wonderful place to explore different cultures.

–June 1, 2010–