My kids have neither :(
I am maharashtrian and my husband is gujarati. After marriage when I went to 'sasuraal' everybody talked to me in gujarati (even my husband). My sweet B-I-L was my translator. Ours was a "love marriage" so my first goal was to impress my in-laws. I made up my mind to learn gujarati. (mostly it was bcos I wanted to know what everybody was talking about me. It was easy for them they could talk right in front of me.) A few times (actually a lot) I sensed that my MIL said something very nasty but, I still don't know what.
Anyways, like a 'pativrata' I started learning the new language and so I was able to understan if they talked slowly. I was so proud of myself and so was everybody else.
Even after coming to US I continued to speak gujarati and now I am very fluent too. But, in all this marathi got lost somewhere. Though I still speak with my father/brothers/sister in marathi, I have started (already) losing the touch.
My son spoke gujarati till he started going to school. Now he speaks only if wants to 'butter' me. He is 9yrs old now. He understands Hindi a little bit and some of gujarati but no marathi - sob sob...
Now my daughter who is 4 yrs younger than him didn't speak any Indian language at all. Her first words were 'no'.
I speak with them in gujarati and always get the answer in english. My son used to go for Hindi classes at our local hindu temple. But, after the basic alphabets he quit.
It really makes me very sad that I didn't pay enough attention. I should have been consistent and should have made them speak our language. My dad and everybody from my side of the family keep telling me to talk to the kids in marathi. Its like starting all over again.
I wanted you ask you guys how do you deal with language issues.
If you ask my kids what is your mother tongue, they would say, "mm....pink!"
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6 comments:
Hello:) I'm from Malaysia. We have quite similar problem. My boys (12 & 8yrs) unable to speak my mother tongue (Kadazan) but they do understand. I speak to them in 3 languages, no wonder they r confused!! I introduce words/sentence a week n keep telling them the meaning, eventually they understand but it's not easy. Good luck to you. Preserving our language means preserving our culture ya.
Thanks Nessa!
I always thought when they grow up it gets easier but, there are always new battles for parents.
Good luck with your boys too.
Hi ... cantaloupe is close to 3 years now. From the beginning I have always talked to her in my mother tongue. I knew she'd pick up English from school. Also I always made sure she replied back to me in my mothertongue. If she talked in English she wouldn't get any response from me.
So far this has worked ...hopefully it will continue
Yes, you have to be very consistent. Good luck to you Cantaloupes amma.
I come from a mixed background and spoke tamil and bengali. my husband speaks konkani. but after we had the babies we make an effort to speak to them in hindi. to us the loss of so called mother tongues is not as big a deal as the feeling that the child should speak one language fluently. and for every one person who leaves maharashtra and forgets the language, there are 1000 migrants who move to bombay and pick it up. dont worry. the language wont die. what i feel is important is that the kids are comfortable in the environment they are being brought up in - that is, speaking english.
my cousins who grew up in UK dont like to speak any indian language, have not been taught any and dont care for it either. no point judging them because they are happy and well settled there and have no intention of coming back here. they dont consier themselves indian either so...
all the best.
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