We No Speak Ameyrikyano

June 20^th-23^rd 2013

My days spent at St. Thomas Apostolic Seminary have been wonderful. I’ve been able to meet so many great priests and seminarians who have shown me nothing but love.

When I would speak with a seminarian for the first time, our initial conversation would consist of topics such as:

                -Who are all in your family (how many siblings?)

                -What do your parents do?

                -Do you enjoy the weather here?

I’ve probably had this conversation with almost every brother I’ve met, but I could tell that they had so many more questions to ask me. I knew there was such much they wanted to know about my life, the American culture, and my own vocation, but there was something stopping them from asking me. 

So I decided to have a Q&A session with the third-year philosophy students (about 40 seminarians). I knew they would probably feel embarrassed asking certain questions, so I let them write questions anonymously on a sheet of paper and submit them to me.

Here are the questions I received, though I did not have time to answer all of them:

-Which are all the factors that led you to join seminary?

-What is the common concept of priesthood in America?

-Are you happy that you belong to the SyroMalabar Catholic Church?

-What is the relevance of the SyroMalabar Diocese in America?

-How is the SyroMalabar Liturgy practiced in America?

-What is the present political and social situation in America?

-What do you think about the family systems in America and in India? Which one is better?

-Is there any issue between black and white people

-Do you find any difference between the mindset of Indians and Americans (talkative, openness, etc.)

-I believe that American people are more adventurous. What do you think?

-Are there any problems associated with sanitation in America?

-How is the spiritual life of an American?
-Can you sing us an American song? (and yes, I did sing for them)

The Q&A session went well. Though the seminarians have been studying English since elementary school and taking classes at the seminary in English, I was asked to speak very slowly because the seminarians cannot understand my American accent so well.

Speaking of American accents, one of the classes I attended a few days back was English Phonetics. After my Malayalam class fiasco last week, I felt a bit more confident walking into this class since, well, I’ve been only speaking English my entire life. How hard would it be to pronounce words in my first language?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

This was probably worse than Malayalam class. So supposedly there is a whole separate set of letters and characters devoted to English pronunciation? This was the first time I encountered such letters before. 

 If you haven’t seen these letters before, don't walk into an English phonetics class thinking you've mastered the English language. I've paid the price for you already.

The professor was going over how to pronounce certain words by using these set of characters. One of the topics of the class that day was actually British vs. American pronunciation. How perfect, an American in the class! What are the chances? God, You've got a great sense of humor!

After the professor wrote some words on the board, he asked me to stand up and pronounce to the word “car”.

So in the most normal and clear way, I said

“car”

Then the professor looks at the class and says, “Students, did eweryone here that? Ameyrikyans say caRR. Ve are learning Brritish English, the prroper pprronunciation, not Ameyrikyan English. Eweryone say caaah. Don’t include the “R” like the Ameryrikyans do!”

ouch. 

First Malayalam, and now English. What language do I have left remaining? Perhaps this video will give you some clarity on the distinction between British and Ameyrikyan English.

http://youtu.be/4Cd9G2lEjBY

There’s a real heavy emphasis on English in the seminary here, like A LOT. They have SyroMalabar Qurbana in English twice a week here and most of the classes are in English. I was hoping to pick up some more Malayalam by being around the brothers, which I am, but the professors are encouraging me to speak as much English as I can with the seminarians because they claim that within a few generations, Malayalam will become secondary to English within Kerala.

wow.

They say that with globalization, primacy of education given to English-medium schools, and English being the language of the internet, there is a greater push to speak English among Malayalis, and so unfortunately, Malayalam is slowly being given less importance. This isn’t just happening in Kerala, but in other countries as well. The professors (who are mostly priests) tell the seminarians that there are a growing number of SyroMalabar children in Kerala who are more comfortable saying their confessions in English rather than Malayalam (though, I'm not completely sure if that's because they know English better than Malayalam. They might just be doing that so the priests won't be able to understand what they're saying. Sneaky children).

Pretty crazy. Will Malayalam “disappear”?  Will it die out? Will Malayalis in the diaspora play a significant role in preserving the Malayalam language? We will see.

The seminary here offers a wide variety of classes. So far I’ve been able to attend: metaphysics, elementary Latin, Malayalam, English Phonetics, Indian philosophy, Hinduism, Philosophy of Jesus Christ, Eco-Philosophy, Bio-Ethics, Gospel of St. John, and Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The seminary also offers smaller courses that students must take in order to “level up” within the seminary. One of those classes is typewriting.

In order for the seminarians to use the computers in the library, they must first learn how to master the traditional typewriter. Not only do they have to learn how to type, but they also have to learn all the technical details about the different parts of the typewriter. Their final exam is to look at a given text and write out the entire passage. Talk about rite of passage.

The seminarians here are really willing to help out each other, whether it be in in the classroom or on the basketball court. Br. Thayyil sits down with a couple students a few days out of the week to teach them Syriac.

Syriac is the liturgical language of the SyroMalabar Church. It looks similar to Arabic because both Arabic and Syriac are Semitic languages, along with Hebrew. Jesus spoke Aramaic and Syriac is an offshoot of Aramaic. This is what the SyroMalabar Qurbana sounded like for centuries. Only in 1962 was the Qurbana translated into Malayalam and then into other languages after that.

If you have a relative that grew up in Kerala before the 1960s, ask him or her if they remember hearing the Qurbana in Syriac.

And while you’re at it, ask your relative if they remember the last major remnants of the caste system among Christians in Kerala.

In some churches, there was a special section designated for the Dalit (untouchables) people, that is, if they were lucky enough to attend Qurbana during the same time as the "regular" Christians. Those churches that welcomed the Dalit Christians but did not encourage a mixed caste Qurbana, offered a separate Qurbana for the Dalit Christians.

Members of the Dalit community were not so easily welcomed among the Christians because of the caste system. As mentioned in the previous post, the caste system was a product of Hinduism which spread itself over the Indian culture and is one-hundred percent incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ. The mentality of viewing other members of society through the caste system was an inevitable part of the culture at the time, and so this mentality of different members of society having different level in society spread it into the Indian churches as well. 

The equality that the Dalit Christians started experiencing in the 1960s and 70s can be attributed to one priest named Fr. Augustine Thevarparampil who, decades earlier, broke the social norms of a priest and worked among the Dalit community, dedicating his entire priesthood towards liberating the oppressed Dalit people and treating them with the dignity the deserved. Because of his efforts, the social mindset of the members of these churches has slowly changed to see the inherent human dignity in all people, regardless of caste, but the process was far from easy.

On that note, enjoy watching the first-year philosophy seminarians making chapatti!

"For all those who suffer and are in distress, the poor and the oppressed, the sick and the afflicted . . . Lord, graciously receive this Qurbana"
-SyroMalabar Holy Qurbana



(Inspiration behind this post's title)