Language and Cultural Identity

In the train from Switzerland to France, I overheard a woman and a man speaking English. Then I saw them: they were Asians. This made me wonder about their history. It also reminded me of this funny video and how Physical appearance is not necessarily a reflection of one's cultural identity.

My daughters, aged 11, 8 and 6 have fair skin and light hair. They speak British English between them with a Northern England accent. Anyone overhearing them would have no idea that their father is German and their mother is African

When people in Algeria first hear them speak Arabic, they usually react in three steps:

• First, marvel at their ability to speak the local lingo, 
• Then, make fun of their accent and how hard it is to understand them
• Finally, denigrate Arabic as a useless language anyway.

This results in puzzled looks from my girls: "What? all those times you tell us to 'please speak Arabic', now it turns out this language is useless?" followed by utter silence.

This makes me angry. These are the very people who should praise our efforts and celebrate our achievements. It is hard to keep a minority language going, especially when only one parent speaks it, let alone with three more languages and two dialects in the mix!

So, how should you react when someone speaks your language whose physical appearance does not match the language in your mind?

Do

• Acknowledge one's genuine surprise - a dose of curiosity is healthy
• Express whatever positive feelings you feel about this
• Continue conversing in that language if both are happy to.

Do not

• Ask where they are really from!
• Make fun of the accent nor the language
• Correct mistakes if you were not asked to do so explicitly

Cultural identity should never be bestowed from the outside. It is up to each person to decide what their identity is, that is if they wish to label it at all.

Take a look at the rest of the series:  A-Z of Raising Multilingual Children hosted on The Piri Piri Lexicon.

Franco-German Cooperation Illustrated

After a week of being pampered by our German auntie, we are now back to me shouting at everyone to pick their clothes up and eat at the table. Remember, I am still hobbling on crutches and unable to use our uber-heavy Dyson.

This week has been an intense German immersion for the girls and me.
At bedtime, two hours after the beloved auntie's departure, BK1 was choosing a book to read. Now you would expect her to pick a book in English or German, particularly after the intense exposure to German.

She chose "La Soupe au Caillou" by Michel Hindenoch.

It must have been a couple of years since I last read this book to the girls. As she is conscious of her higher reading ability in English, BK1 usually dislikes reading aloud in French or German.
Yesterday though, she spontaneously chose to read in French, aloud.

I think this illustrates that consolidating a minority language has a positive impact on the other minority languages, don't you think?

In advance, apologies for BK3's energetic and noisy antics!

Don't Speak English!

Are you an expat? Do you live in an English-speaking country? Want your children to blend in? Want them to integrate perfectly?

Here's my advice: do not speak English with them!

We visited BK1's school assembly a couple of weeks ago. The children had prepared a travel agency scenario and were presenting facts about a couple of countries. They dressed up and moved around, dancing or pretending to be a giant Chinese dragon. It was fun.

The interesting bit from the point of view of this blog: In BK1's class she is not the only child from a non-native English family. There are a couple of others from Indian or Pakistani backgrounds. Comparing how those children speak, I have to say BK1 is the only one who does not have any accent.

Well, she has an accent which apparently is clearly local, but the others speak with pretty strong Indian or Pakistani accents.

I reckon there is a multitude of possible reasons for that, but my personal opinion is: it's because the parents speak English at home and we don't.

Going back to the beginning of our journey. We never thought about it a lot, really. For both the Babelmum and myself, it was always obvious that we would use our mother tongue when speaking with our children. In our specific case, that leads to a combination of OPOL and ML@H, and that works fine. It also meant that we never thought about speaking English with our little ones. They would pick that up.

And they did. So much so that English is now their main language and that someone from around here can tell they live here. "Here" meaning Stockport, as opposed to the bigger bucket "Manchester" or "The North".

I know at least some of the other expat parents speak English with their kids. They do so with an accent, which is totally normal because they didn't learn English when they were young.

The problem is that they're passing their accent on to their kids, effectively negating the very reason why they're speaking English in the first place!

So, if you want your child to blend in, leave the task to the experts, let your child learn the language from the locals. Or from CBeebies, if you must.

Of course, the same goes for any language. If you are an expat living in a country that speaks a different language, use your own when you speak with your kids. Do what you do best.

Là-bas

We have got a French neighbour, who is also an ex-colleague of the BabelDad. G is his 8-year old son. G's mum is British. G understands little French. As many children born in a family where only one parent speaks the minority language, English has taken over in G's family.
G's father has recently been expressing his wish that his son understood and spoke a bit of French.

So we (me, my 3 girls and G) are driving back home, from some after-school activity. I decide that we will only speak French in the car.
G: "I know some French words: vache, cheval"
Me: "Bien" (good)
G: "How do you say 'there'?"
Me to BK1: "Kifach tqouli 'there' en Francais?" (How do you say 'there' in French?)
BK1: "Temmek!" (there, in arabic!)

Knowing BK1 is almost 7, I thought she clearly made the difference between Arabic and French words. I was obviously mistaken.

For the record, "there" in French is "là-bas".