Can you lose your mother tongue? For many children of immigrant origin in Quebec, French takes over in their daily lives, to the point of making them passive bilinguals — that is to say, they can understand their parents’ language without be able to speak it. The duty presents the portraits of Quebecers who wanted to reclaim it. Today: the journey of Anna Pellerin Petrova, of Bulgarian origin.
In 2019, Anna Pellerin Petrova obtained her Masters in World Literature and Culture from the University of Ottawa. The young student finally had her sixty-page dissertation in her hands.
Despite all the efforts already invested in this project, Anna has decided to take on an additional challenge: to translate her dissertation into Bulgarian, one of her mother tongues — and the only one with which she can communicate with her father, Jordan.
Although she was born in Toronto, Anna learned two languages at home: French, spoken by her mother, and Bulgarian, which is used exclusively by her father. As she spent a lot of time at home with him before entering school, her command of Bulgarian was even better than that of French.
“But that completely changed the second I entered the French education system,” she says in an interview with The duty. Although she still speaks Bulgarian relatively well, she notes that French has necessarily taken over over the years. The 27-year-old now has to make “monstrous” efforts on a daily basis to avoid losing him further.
“I try to keep the language alive because, since I no longer live with my parents, I no longer have the opportunity to practice it every day,” she explains.
This is also the reason why she wanted to tackle the translation of her master’s thesis a few years ago. The book, first written in French, focuses on Bulgarian post-communist cinema.
“I decided to translate it so that my father could be able to read it and share it with his family. We even collaborated to do it, ”she says. Two months were needed to complete the translation.
Small daily efforts
Since leaving home six years ago, Anna has been trying to make time for practicing Bulgarian in her daily routine. “I try to read small books and listen to the news in Bulgarian, but it’s a challenge,” she admits.
“I try to watch films in Bulgarian, but it’s not easy to find any. When there are international film festivals and there are some in Bulgarian, I go there even if the film doesn’t necessarily interest me,” she confides.
Why deploy so many “efforts” not to lose one’s mother tongue? For Anna, the answer is obvious: to maintain ties with her father. “Otherwise I couldn’t talk to him, and I want to be able to talk to him about all kinds of things; debate with him on subjects such as politics, philosophy or science. I want to have all that vocabulary. »
Then there is also the question of identity. The one who notably attended the Bulgarian school every weekend until the age of 10, and who spent almost every summer in Bulgaria, feels intimately linked to the culture. “The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t feel quite Canadian, not quite Quebecer. Bulgarian is a big part of my identity. »
“Even if my father was no longer there, I would still like to keep this part of my identity and also pass it on to my children, when I have them,” she concludes.