Welcome to my first blog entry. I decided to write this blog because I have many thoughts and ideas about being raised as a first generation Indian in America. Having gone through school, college & now the experience of having my children in school, I have alot to say! Issues such as language, food, clothing and social relationships have always been a delicate issue in my life. For my parents, raising children in a brand new culture was something that could not be learned from others before them. As part of the early wave of Indian immigrants, they had to figure out how to raise their children while balancing both cultures.
One of the biggest issues that Indian paernts deal with is the idea of language. There are two sides to this issue. First there are those parents who completely lose their mother tongue and do not give their children the chance to have exposure to it. This group of parents end up removing all parts of the Indian culture from their childrens lives. I believe that if infants/young children are given the chance to learn their mother tongue, then it will be a part of their upbringing and always be a part of what they know. Eventually however, chldren begin school and are educated in English. It is at this point that they need to incorporate their education into their day to day lives.
In my opinion, children must use their English speaking skills on a regular basis so that they can improve their ability to communicate with others. In my own life, my husband and I taught out children punjabi and gujurati (mother tongues) for the first three years of life, and then switched to English. My children do still understand their mother languages, however communicate in English. This is all I have to say on this matter for now, however, I will certainly elaborate on this topic more on a future blog post.
I invite readers to comment on this and all my future blog posts.
Great topic, Shrut. I think there are many of us who struggled with this growing up. I am excited to read more of what you have to say!
ReplyDeleteAs far as the language issue goes, I definitely think kids should be exposed to their mother tongue. I don't have kids but my husband and I speak different languages and I wonder how we're going to work that out if we ever want to teach our kids Hindi and Gujurati.
Any ideas?
Thank you Neesha for your thoughts. I think that the chance for you to teach your future children two languages is awesome. It takes discipline on your part to keep up with the mother tongue, however the payoffs are worth it. You and your husband could speak to each other in English, however children at a young age can understand and learn multiple languages with ease. I will certainly discuss this futther in a future post..stay tuned!
ReplyDeletenice blog Shrutee! i just say, have one day a week to start or a set time in house when all of you are together to just speak in mother tongues..(it's actually quite fun) trust me! it helps out when your at the grocery line and want to talk about the freak in front of you!!!!!...ie-56 items in the express line!!!!
ReplyDeleteGood point Manisha...and a great idea! It takes alot of discipline to make sure we incorporate our mother tongues into our day to day lives. I agree, it can be useful in public situations. Honestly, I've noticed that I do revert back to speaking Gujurati when I am upset with one of the children, its kind of funny! Thank you for your comments.
ReplyDeleteA very essential topic for discussion. Yes most parents speak to their children in their mother tongues but how many oft hem also encourage their children to talk back to them in different languages?
ReplyDeleteI know many Gujurati people who fully understand it but don't speak it? Where's the sense in that?
Rafal speaks to Zara in Polish, I in English and my mother in Gujurati. When she learns a new word, she then gets taught it in all the other languages and we find that her language is littered with words from all 3.
Vish, this is the perfect age for Zara to learn multiple languages. From my experience, after age 3 they begin to reply in the main language spoken in the home so depending on how you & Raf communicate (how good is your Polish now?) she will follow. Also, once she begins school, English will be her main language in order to coummunicate with others. This will have to be reinforced at home so that Zara excels her vocabulary more and more and applies it to school. You could still keep the Polish & Gujurati cultures a big part of her life through food, clothing, discusssion and pictures.
ReplyDeleteAs for how she speaks now in 3 different languages, Im sure its cute and eventually Zara will learn to differentiate the languages - til then expose her as much as you can!
Thank you for your comments, loving this!!
This indeed is a great topic to talk about and now after having Meera its worth discussing. Having being raised in India, I had the opportunity to learn both Hindi and English at the same time. Proficiency in speaking and writing English came to me as easily as that in Hindi even though we spoke the latter only at home. I believe in introducing multiple languages at the very onset of child’s learning stage as their brains’ are sponges which can absorb multifold things. We speak with Meera in both Hindi and English and even at 3 months of age she seems to be responding well to both. However, our strategy is to explain her the same word in both languages so she learns to correlate one with the other. Some child psychologists also believe that second language should be “acquired” and not “learned” and I truly believe in that. Its crucial that we keep our kids connected with our heritage and speaking Hindi at home is one thread towards it.
ReplyDeleteHimani A Chopra
Very insightful Himani. I agree with speaking in two languages at once - this is how I spoke to both kids for the first 3 yrs - repeating the same thing in the other language.
ReplyDeleteThis is something that can be done throughout their lives, but takes alot of discipline on the parents...once children start talking in one language, our instinct is to reply in that same language. Both my kids only spoke in English after 3 yrs old, but that is probably a result of Raj and I having to speak English to each other.
I am still sble to communicate with both kids in Gujurati (or Raj speaks in Punjabi) but we are not very disciplined and often just speak what comes naturally.
We do our best to have alot of exposure of the Indian culture to both children and will continue to do that always.