CHAT: Pycckuú B Texac u tak dalee...

--- Leo Caesius <leo_caesius@...> wrote:
> Danny Wier wrote:
>
> "Tehaskij (Texas Russian): The little-known Third Language of Texas!
> (Yes, it's fictional.)"
>
>     I was under the impression that the people of Panna Maria (Karnes
> County), who immigrated to Texas in the 19th century, still spoke
> Silesian
> Polish to this very day.  Check out the website of the Polish
> Genealogical
> Society of Texas (www.pgst.org); I know they have more information on
> Panna
> Maria.  In fact, there is quite a large number of people of Polish
> descent
> in Texas today (I know Austin has one of the largest Polish Jewish
> populations in North America, IIRC); perhaps Polish might have
> something to
> contribute to Tehaskij?
Yes, that is indeed true.  Hard to imagine Polish-Americans in Texas
rather than Chicago, even for me!  According to SIL, there are indeed a
thousand-odd speakers of Upper and Lower Sorbian (aka Silesian aka
Wendish); this language community is probably endangered.  The number
of Czech and German speakers in central Texas dwarfs Polish, Slovak,
Swedish and Sorbian speakers by a great deal.  In fact, there is at
least one AM radio station that broadcasts in Czech some part of the
day; I don't know about German though.  (Incidentally, Texas also has a
lot of French, including Cajun, culture integrated into the fabric of
Texiana.)

About Polish Jews in Austin -- I didn't know about the size of that
community and I even lived in Austin once!!  There are at least three
or four synagogues in the River City, and Jews from the Reformed,
Conservative, Orthodox and even Messianic (i.e. Jewish Christians)
traditions can easily be found.

Anyway, I would imagine that a theoretical Russian-Ukrainian population
would fit in fairly well among the Eastern European immigrants in
Texas.  The Russian-American community, which is probably pretty small,
is mostly located in San Antonio if I'm not mistaken.  So if there
would've been a major migration from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus etc., it
would be situated there, as well as the obvious Texas Hill Country.

>      The myth goes that the French which the people of Frenchville
> speak is
> "unchanged from the days of Lafayette."  I'm not sure how true this
> is; I've
> heard similar claims made for Quebecois.  Frenchville is fast
> becoming a
> ghost town (as the young leave for educational and economic reasons),
> and I
> have yet to meet one person from the state of Pennsylvania who has
> heard of
> it.
The same claim is made about the Cajuns, of speaking the same language
of King Louis XIV.  And there are indeed real ghost towns in East
Texas, or at least one.  At least I heard there is, so I have to do
research on that too... thank God for the Web...

Another curiousity: in a state which was the largest in America until
Alaska joined in 1960, there are only two Indian reservations -- one in
the Panhandle (Apache?  Comanche?  Kiowa?); the other near Livingston
(the new home of Death Row): Alabama-Coushatta.

DaW.

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