Archives Awareness Week 2019: You're the Translator!

 

April 1-7 is Archives Awareness Week in Ontario, and we've got a challenge for you! The Archdiocese of Toronto is proud to offer masses in 33 languages. It's wonderful to be able to serve such a diverse community, but one of the challenges of the job is to accurately process material that comes to us that we don't automatically understand. 

It's a bit easier now that we have the Internet, but ARCAT archivists didn't always have that luxury. When the older material in the archives was described, the archivists would have had to rely on people in the building or in the wider Catholic community who spoke languages other than English to provide translations. As you'll see below, it can be especially challenging when trying to decipher handwritten letters.

Now it's your turn to play language detective! We've selected 10 records in different languages, and it's your job to match them to the list below with the help of a few clues in the captions. Good luck!

Polish - Tamil - Italian - Latvian - German - Slovak - Chinese (Traditional) -  Hungarian - Croatian - Korean 

A.

This 1968 booklet explains the history of a community group associated with Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish.

ARCAT Parish Collection

B. 

This 1920 letter to Archbishop McNeil was translated by a priest at St. Casimir's Church. It reads,

"I place myself in your hands with a great request with humility from America. I am a priest and was educated in Europe. I received priestly ordination from the Rev. Bishop Carfory of Chicago but if your excellency would accept me I would be very grateful and would be able to unite the _____ people and I would be properly situated with regard to yourself. I place myself in your memory."

MN EC05.15
Archbishop McNeil Fonds

C.

This 1963 booklet on the sacrament of marriage was in the collection of a personal parish established in 1955 and named after Mary, Queen of their country.

ARCAT Parish Collection

D.

This 1956 ad from the Ontario Department of Highways explaining highway signs to newcomers is from the newspaper Nový Domov, which is still in publication today.

MG EN12.46
Cardinal McGuigan Fonds

E. 

In 1947 the Archbishop of Cologne wrote to his countrymen in Canada to ask for assistance for the people in his area who were suffering as a result of the Second World War.

MG EN03.01
Cardinal McGuigan Fonds

F. 

The youth of St. Elizabeth Parish were invited to a disco dance in 1977.

G. 

This 1875 note is explaining a few facts about Canada, including how many Catholics are members of the cabinet (il gabinetto) and senate (il senato).

L AD04.77
Archbishop Lynch Fonds

H. 

This 2002 bulletin comes to us from Sacred Heart of Jesus (Ye Su Sung Shim) Parish.

ARCAT Parish Collection

I. 

A 1954 circular for Canadian Catholics hailing from a particular Baltic State.

MG EN06.08
Cardinal McGuigan Fonds

J.

A page from the 2013 Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan, which is fully available in six languages and summarized in 30.

Available on the Archdiocese of Toronto Website: www.archtoronto.org/Pages/plan-summary.aspx  

Scroll down for the answers!

To find a mass in all of these languages and more, you can use the Find a Parish tool: https://www.archtoronto.org/contact-us/find-a-parish

Answers:

A. Chinese (Traditional)

B. Polish

C. Croatian

D. Slovak

E. German

F. Hungarian

G. Italian

H. Korean

I. Latvian

J. Tamil

Dokumenton de la Semajno

Earlier this week marked the anniversary of the highly influential publication Unua Libro. On July 26, 1887, Dr. L.L. Zamenhoff published this volume, where he unveiled a newly constructed language that he promised was easy to learn and that he hoped would become a universal second language, free of linguistic prejudice. His ultimate goal was to contribute to peace and understanding between nations.

Today, Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. The language became known as Esperanto based on Zamenhof’s pseudonym, Doktoro Esperanto (“Doctor who hopes”). 

In honour of Unua Libro's 130th anniversary, our dokumenton de la semajno (record of the week) is a letter from F. Kaelble to Archbishop McNeil asking for an endorsement for the Catholic Esperanto Movement in Toronto in 1932.



 



"...the thing I have in mind is the formation of a Catholic Esperanto Association to bring the different country's in closer contact as far as Catholics are concerned."

October 23, 1932

MN AH21.97
Archbishop McNeil Fonds

Mr. Kaelble asks for the Archbishop’s blessing in forming a local Catholic Esperanto Association, and for the opportunity to talk to young Catholics about how Esperanto relates to their faith. As a member of Universala Esperanto-Asocio (Universal Esperanto Association) he believes that Esperanto could allow Catholics from around the world to share and discuss the Gospel regardless of their first language.

The religious potential that Mr. Kaelble saw in Esperanto was not unique. In fact, the Catholic Esperanto Movement is almost as old as the language itself. Father Alexandras Dambrauskas learned of the new language in 1887 when he was a student at the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg. After reading Zamenhof’s booklet, he wrote his first postcard to the author in 1896.  The following is a rough translation of the original Esperanto text:

... Our Catholic Church is an immense family (...) But in a family there must also be a language comprehensible to all. (…) But Latin, being a language of priests, is no longer sufficient for all relations ... Lay Catholics are equally entitled to desire that the common father [the Pope] speaks to them in the commonly understood language . It can not therefore be French or Italian, or another of the [national] living languages, but only the [living] international language. (Source)

The 1900s proved to be formative years for the Catholic Esperanto Movement. Espero Katolika (Catholic Hope), a religious periodical written entirely in Esperanto, published its first edition in October 1903. The aforementioned Father Dambrauskas also published an early Catholic Esperanto work, “Versajxareto" (Little Book of Verse), in 1905.



Public Domain image, via Espero Katolika

The first page from the first edition of Espero Katolika, October 1903. This poem is in honour of Pope Pius X.

Pope Pius X bestowed the first papal blessing of the Catholic Esperanto Movement in 1906 after being presented with a bound edition of the Espero Katolika. His Holiness issued a second blessing of the Catholic Esperanto movement in 1910 following the creation of Internacia Katolika Unuiĝo Esperantista (IKUE, or The International Union of Catholic Esperantists).

Esperanto has also been included in the Urbi et Orbi papal address since April 3, 1994, when Pope John Paul II wished the audience "Felicxan Paskon en Kristo resurektinta" (a Happy Easter in Christ risen) for the first time. You can listen to Pope Benedict XVI say the traditional Easter Blessing in Esperanto here.

The Catholic Esperanto Movement shows no signs of slowing down. In recent years we can see how the internet has helped strengthen the Catholic Esperanto Movement. The IKUE and Espero Katolika both have online presences. The Vatican Radio, which has offered regular broadcasts in Esperanto since January 2, 1977, now offers programoj en esperanto (programs in Esperanto) online. Other Catholic Esperanto reference tools include an Esperanto translation of the Bible, and an overview of Catholic Esperanto history. 

If you're looking to learn the language, La Kanada Esperanto-Asocio (Canadian Esperanto Association) might have a club near you.