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When I was a little girl, I dreamt of a family- home next to Marina Beach of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Well , until I grew up , I could not convince my Bengali parents to shift to Chennai due to many valid reasons and I decided to make my own home in my dream destination . But then I had to find a husband who resides there. Aawo……….. I got my dream man too, a perfect Tamil who was ready to fulfill my dream to settle down in the sea side city. I enjoyed every bit of this bilingual relationship, the misunderstandings, confusions, imitating the other language, criticizing the cultures …….. all due to the clashes of two ancient cultures of the world.. ……….the Dravidian and the Aryan. This sweet and sour exchange game became a ridiculous problem when we planned for a baby. I was possessive about the Bengali cultures that my child must accept and the would be father was similarly possessive about the Tamil culture. This tug of war of culture finally ended when the lovely fairy arrived and we decided that better we should adopt an INDIAN CULTURE forgetting North –South division.
But it was not an easy task…we communicated with our girl in our own pacifying languages thinking how wonderful it would be when she starts talking. But by the end of the second year, to our shock, we found our daughter can neither speak nor seems to understand any of the languages we spoke to her. It was high time and we had to admit her to some good school in the following year…. we were heart broken whenever some one else used to compare their child’s grasping power with ours. Time passed on and the baby girl made her own vocabulary giving us tough time to understand what was she conveying. When she was three we decided to put her in the school as we were advised that groups of children often help each other to better their communication skills. Nope……… she was determined to prove us wrong and I as a mother started believing he has serious health problems which is burring her from speaking like other normal children. Another shock……………….the teacher complained that she can’t grasp her pencils and she doubted the child was mentally abnormal and dull. I ran to the best pediatrics in the city , cried in front of them and each of them told she will take time… we have to wait for one more year to understand whether she is really abnormal or not. A mother’s worst night mare probably.
But then……
In the following Sunday evening I stared blankly at my child whom I literally pleaded with folded hands to utter the best known rhyme “twinkle twinkle little star……”.I broke down in tears when my husband joined me to teach her to talk in “human language”. Suddenly I heard my little angel talking, I couldn’t believe my ears as she spoke in clear Tamil, asking her Tamil father “appa , amma edike aluditrikange?” My husband was equally shocked when in the next minute; she directed the question to me in Bengali” maa tumi kandcho keno?” We both stared at each other like fools. She smartly picked up her pencil by her left hand, and with a farm grip, wrote her lesson. Omigosh…. She can speak and she speaks two languages!!!!!!!! And she is a left hander…………My joy knew no bounds. Well, my sweet heart is above average……………. hurrrreeeee. Well, since then she keeps on surprising us by her language skill and that’s the lesson for all other bilingual parents like us. She travels with me everywhere and gives a patient hearing to the local spoken language for minimum two hours. And then the language is hers.
Hence, worried new bilingual parents, here are some of my advices which may help you:
1. Do not listen to any comparisons between your child and any other child born to parents who speak same language.
2. Be strong mentally, your child may be adjusting himself/herself with the languages.
3. Show him pictures and tell him the name in both the languages.
4. Observe him closely as to which sound he is picking up first.
5. Encourage him to speak in the language he feels comfortable. Don’t burden him with your own mother tongue if he is not speaking it as fluently as he is speaking the other language.
6. Sing a song in your language and then translate it in the other language. It encourages him to understand both the languages.
7. Ask the teacher to speak to him in the language other children are communicating. It would be easy for him to pick up the language.
8. Take him to cultural festivals of both the States. See how your house will turn into a festive house every month.
9. Mom and dad …… don’t try to dominate each other’s language. Let mom speak her language and dad speak his. Do not shy away from your own mother tongue.
10. Don’t be surprised if your child suddenly starts bombarding you with questions in both the languages. Patiently tell him that you don’t know the meaning of the particular word and see how he works as your language teacher.
Enjoy parenthood for the brilliant multilingual child.
u sure have a awesome way of describing in lucid language and reading ur blog has been a real pleasure...will wait for more such stuff from u!
ReplyDeleteMam, i am a die heart fan of your blogs and this is really awesome. It very interesting and crucial topic which one can not easily imagine to write on it it .....Hats off to you. As sir is a source of inspiration to me and i mean him as my role model. After reading this blog, you have simply masmarised me. And i have became your follower much more than earlier, i was.
ReplyDeleteThe article is a very nice read. Our daughter is 'technically' not bilingual as we, the parents, both speak Bengali, but since she started going to the daycare (in the US) since she was 6 months, her doctor predicted she'll talk late. I was OK with that and unlike many other parents, we kept on speaking in Bengali with her. Contrary to what the doc said, she started to speak in Bengali very early and soon started in English, too. All kids are different...they have their own rhythm...it's sad when elders jump to conclusion too soon.
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