It šort nem čapolunk! With this short, witty, and to many perhaps mysterious-sounding sentence, a project called Jazykuchyňa welcomed its first visitors during the Pohoda festival in 2012. At the time, probably none of them suspected that behind this name lay an interactive school focused on teaching minority languages - Hungarian, Hebrew, and Romani.
Today, the Jazykuchyňa team has successfully completed its first term, during which they managed to teach dozens of students the essentials of the culture and language of various minorities living in Slovakia, all within the walls of Bratislava's Dunaj Cultural Centre. If all this still did not seem exceptional enough, we would add one more detail - they managed to offer it all for free.
Since we at the editorial office of Prohuman magazine are always curious about how such exceptional projects are made and who the people behind them are, we asked the Jazykuchyňa team a few questions. You can read the answers in the following interview.
Jazykuchyňa is still being talked about as a series of minority language courses. What is Jazykuchyňa to you? Who stands behind its creation and what should be the main goal of its existence?
Behind the creation of Jazykuchyňa is the non-profit organization Midl, n.o. in cooperation with Minorma. Jazykuchyňa was created during last summer and began its first term in September; the second term is currently underway at KC Dunaj.
The main goal is to break down prejudices in our people towards other minorities, to show them through culture (literature, history, music...) as normal people.
Jazykuchyňa currently offers teaching of Hungarian, Romani, and Hebrew. On what basis did you choose precisely these languages? Do you plan to expand the language offer in the future, or perhaps launch higher levels of study for individual languages? If so, which languages would they be?
We selected the languages according to the minorities in Slovakia, and we certainly intend to expand the languages. For example, to include Old Slovak, which could be very interesting for people.
Your courses are also interesting because, in addition to familiarizing participants with the language, you also focus on the culture of each minority. Can you describe what you try to present to your students over the course of one term, what the teaching and individual lessons look like?
Jazykuchyňa is a kitchen of cultures, where languages are mixed with culture. Each of the 8 lessons features a different guest, including, for example, director Peter Kerekes, dancer Nóra Écsi, from the Romani side writer Zdenka Mahájová, and from the Hebrew side numerous experts on the Hebrew language and Jewish culture; one of the lessons also takes place at the synagogue on Heydukova Street.
For a project like this, you apparently needed to find lecturers who are experts not only in the given language but also in the culture itself. In addition, you managed to supplement individual lessons with meetings with very interesting guests. By what criteria did you seek and select the lecturers and guests? Was it a difficult process, or were they open to such collaboration?
Since the entire Jazykuchyňa is free of charge, we needed such people too; of course, we have salaries for the lecturers' honorariums, but the visitors pay nothing. Lecturers do not have to be experts in culture - that is precisely why we invite guests. Since all of us organizers from Midl n.o. come from an art university, we know many people from the cultural sphere and also work on other projects. People were very willing, some less so, but that happens everywhere and always.
You have already completed the first term of Jazykuchyňa. Could you try to evaluate how it went in terms of public interest? The next term is just getting underway. Can any changes be expected compared to the previous term?
The first term went very well, without any major problems; people filled out questionnaires for us afterward. Hebrew was the most successful. Hebrew does not have a single lecturer, since it is pointless to talk too much about the language in 8 hours - we can provide the basics, but probably not much more, which is why it is focused on culture as much as possible among the languages. People were satisfied with both the lecturers and the overall atmosphere.
What, as organizers, has brought you the greatest joy so far while working on Jazykuchyňa?
The greatest joy was sitting in on the lessons and seeing people enjoying themselves together, cooking together, adults making paper collages for the first time. That is the greatest satisfaction.
Where can interested people find more information about your project? How can they sign up for one of the courses?
Information is available on the website jazykuchyna.kcdunaj.sk or on our Facebook page, facebook.com/Jazykuchyna.
We sincerely hope that the story of Jazykuchyňa has inspired you at least as much as it inspired us. And regardless of whether you have decided to try studying one of the languages, or whether this story has spurred you to think about your own project, we from the editorial office will be keeping our fingers crossed for you. And if you would like to share the details with us, feel free to get in touch!