New Jersey
Chapter
“What
Makes the Rusyn Language So Special?”
Saturday,
March 12, 2005
2 – 4 PM
Wayne Public Library
461 Valley Road
Wayne,
NJ 07470
Refreshments will be served
Dr. Brian McHugh, Professor
of Linguistics at Temple University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania will address the topic “What Makes the Rusyn
Language So Special?”
He will contrast popular and
scientific notions of “language” and dialect” as they apply
to Carpatho-Rusyn and its East Slavic sister languages
(Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian) and its West and South
Slavic linguistic “first cousins” with which it lives in
daily contact (Polish, Slovak and Serbo-Croatian).
Professor McHugh, who teaches
in the Communications Sciences Department, received his B.A.
degree from Yale University and Ph.D. from UCLA, both in
Linguistics (the scientific study of human language). He
speaks several foreign languages, primarily German, French,
Russian, Polish and Hausa. He also speaks “ a smattering”
of other languages such as Turkish, Swahili, Haitian Creole,
Ukrainian and, last but not least, Carpatho-Rusyn, the
language of his father’s birth parents.
Dr. McHugh is a native of the
Philadelphia area, the son of a Polish-American mother and a
Carpatho-Rusyn-American father. His father, Raymond “Jack”
McHugh, was originally baptized Roman Semanenko in a Russian
Orthodox church in Connecticut, but quickly placed in an
orphanage. An “Anglo” couple, John and Clara McHugh later
adopted him. The McHughs then moved to the Philadelphia
area where Brian’s father and mother later met. Little did
they know though, how close their roots were back in “The
Old Country”: his father’s birth parents hailed from the
Lemko villages of Zhydivske and Rozstajne in Jaslo powiat;
his mother’s family from the nearby Polish town of Krosno.
It took Brian’s sleuthing on the Internet to solve the
puzzle of his father’s true origins. Since this discovery he
has joined the C-RS, presented scholarly papers on various
aspects of the Rusyn language question, and served as a
delegate to the most recent World Congress of Rusyns.
For program information, and
in the case of inclement weather, call John Mihalasky at
(908) 459-9859) or email
John Mihalasky.
Do not call the Library.
Directions:
Take Route 46 to the Riverview Drive Exit in the direction
of Wayne. Continue on Riverview Drive to the traffic light
at Valley Road. Turn right onto Valley Road and proceed to
the second traffic light at Nellis Drive at the Wayne
Municipal Complex. Turn left and then right to access the
Library and its parking lot.
From
Manhattan:
From the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and
Eighth
Avenue, take New Jersey
Transit bus number 197 to the Valley Road/Preakness Avenue
stop in Wayne. The bus stop is located across the street
from the Wayne Municipal Complex. The bus departing
Manhattan at 1:00 PM arrives in Wayne at 1:47 PM. The round
trip fare is approximately $10.
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