Neighborhood

Boerum Hill

Brooklyn
In the Census-defined PUMA including Brooklyn Heights & Fort Greene, according to recent Census data, (in descending order), Yiddish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin each have more than 1000 speakers. Varieties of English and Spanish are commonly spoken in the area as well.
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Languages with a significant site in this neighborhood, marked by a point on the map:

Belarusian

Беларуская
Many Belarusians arriving in New York after the Second World War were drawn to the Eastern European matrix, primarily Ukrainian, in what is now considered the East Village. It was this community that helped established the St. Cyril of Turau church in 1950, originally located on East 4th Street before it moved to its current Boerum Hill location in 1957—where it is a magnet for Belarusians across Brooklyn. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, some Belarusians have found a home much further south, near the Russian-speaking world of Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach, where Belarussian Xata was for a while a popular restaurant.

Mohawk

Kanien’kéha
Mohawk speakers from the Kahnawake and Akwesasne reservations in Canada and upstate New York have long been a part of New York City, particularly what is today called the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, where as many as 700 formed a long-term community during the 1920s New York's "building boom". Mohawk-speaking men achieved fame as fearless steelworkers, unafraid of heights and responsible for constructing many of the city's bridges and skyscrapers. The Brooklyn community formed around a union hiring hall, a local tavern, and Cuyler Presbyterian Church, where Reverend David Cory offered the church as a space for community gatherings and learned the language himself enough to hold services in Mohawk. While few remain in Boerum Hill today, Mohawk steelworkers are still a force and were among those responsible for one of the city's latest mega-towers, One World Trade Center.

Syriac

ܣܘܪܝܝܐ
Derived from the Aramaic once spoken in Mesopotamia and into what is now Syria, Turkey, and Iran, Syriac became a primary vehicle especially for Eastern Christian texts around the 5th century CE. Syrian and Lebanese Christians who used Arabic in daily life but Syriac in church began emigrating to New York from the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century. They established the Charitable Syrian Orthodox Association in 1895, and unified their community with the construction of Boerum Hill's St. Nicholas Cathedral. Paramus, New Jersey is also home to a Syriac Christian community, centered around the local Archdiocese.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Yemeni Arabic
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Boerum Hill

Brooklyn

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