Bilingual? A bit more complicated than that ...

I often come across people, who hearing me speak with the girls, ask "So you are raising the girls to be bilingual?" (implying English and whatever language I happened to be speaking at the time). I invariably smile, and either reply "Hum, Hum, yes ..." or more often "Well, actually, it is a bit more complicated than that...".
I sometimes explain that I speak Arabic and French to the girls, the Babel Father speaks German to them, and the two of us speak French between us. It can be confusing for people. I will be confused if a mum comes up to me and says she speaks Portuguese to her Child, the father speaks German, the parents speak French between them, and they all live in a Dutch-speaking environment (incidentally, this is a real example of a family we know).
It can be reassuring to put people in boxes, know what to expect, and how to generally behave with them. On the other hand, putting our daughters in boxes is not a straightforward. I love it!

Bilingual Carnival January Edition

It's Bilingual Carnival time again! Head over to Bilingual Readers for this month's fun and remarkable blog articles on raising children in multi-lingual environment.

A new hybrid language is born!

Being Algerian, I mix Arabic and French as standard practice. Algerian is a kind of pidgin Arabic, with French verbs conjugated in Arabic, and French nouns roughly "arabised".

BK1 speaks this hybrid language, and further hybridises it by adding English words and expressions.

A new dimension has appeared recently. BK1 speaks Arabic/French with BK2, I'd say about 90% of  the time. The remaining 10% is German, when the girls are with their dad and I am not around. Now BK1 has invented the Arabic/German hybrid in sentences such as: "T'habbi Taqraï (a) Buch(g)?" (do you want to read a book?) or "T'habbi taqqaadi fouk (a) Schoss(g)?" (do you want to sit on my knees?).

This happens when BK2  utters the words "Buch" and "Schoss", and BK1 reprises them in their conversation which is usually in Arabic. Now why does BK1 not translate the German words into Arabic or French? Is it because of the limitations of her vocabulary in these two languages? Is it because she is used to hybridising Arabic with French and/or English, so adding German to the equation is natural to her?

Will the girls ever speak Arabic properly, with minimal mixing? Only time will tell, and these are early days.

Multi-lingual Words

Much like BK1 mixes words from different languages in one sentence, BK2 has started to create words by mixing words from different languages. Her most used two are:

The moon is "luned" from the French "lune" and the German "Mond".

And "upstairs" is "fuch" (pronounced "foo" with the German "ch" sound at the end), from Arabic "fouk" and German "hoch".

I wonder how her language skills will evolve now that she starts getting into it seriously. Here's looking forward to the next months!

Nostalgia

We are 3 days into our trip to Germany. Surprisingly, BK1 still speaks to BK2 in Arabic/French. BK1 can be totally immersed in a German conversation, she would nevertheless switch to Arabic/French to speak to BK2 (as she would obviously to me). I wonder what mechanism prompts this choice. Whatever the reason, I can't help feeling a little proud, and comforted that a bit of my culture is shared by my two girls. I suppose this feeling is accentuated by the Christmas period. I never celebrated Christmas, of course, before being part of my husband's family. I embrace this tradition, in the same way hubby embraces mine (ramadan, eid etc). However, I still sometimes feel alien to the Occidental ways. I miss my parents, my family, my culture, my country...

It's a Carnival: Raising Your Child Bilingually

Welcome to It's a Carnival: Raising your child bilingually, a monthly get-together for all interested in bilingualism and in raising bilingual children and an opportunity to share experiences, info and best practices.

Every month the Carnival is hosted at a different blog. You can check the schedule and book your turn for hosting (next available slot seems to be March, so if you’re interested you should let us know as soon as possible). If you’d like to be updated about future issues, know when and how to submit your posts to the carnival, or just make sure you won’t miss any, please sign up to the newsletter, which will be used only for the bare minimum of communication needed to get the Carnival going, normally 2 emails per month, nothing else.

So, in no particular order, here are the articles for this month:

- Clo at "Multi Tongue Kids" shares how she and her family might come across as crazy in everyday situation, simply because they are using so many languages and nobody else understands them.

- Deanna at "Bilingual Readers" looks at whether watching TV might have a positive effect on learning more languages.

- Stefanie at "Mummy Do That" tells the story of her daughter's first Laternenumzug (lantern procession) and evokes an aspect of bilingual life: multi-culturalism.

- Tanja at "Intrepidly Bilingual" is also reporting on culture and how by actively following the traditions of all cultures, she motivates her children to speak the minority language.

- Maria at "Fab Mums" writes about the same subject, cultural exposure. Her example fits nicely into the time of year: christmas songs.

- From "Blogging on Bilingualism" comes a very interesting question: do we, the parents, have to make some sacrifices?

- Solnushka at "Verbosity" discusses Stephen Krashen and the silent period. She also explains why learning from TV won't work.

- My own post from Babelkid is on OPOMLAH and why I think that's a good constellation.

- Last but not least I would like to point out two articles that were not submitted but somehow touched a nerve. Suzanne at "Notes from the OPOL family" gets help from her cat and Reb at "Uh Oh Spaghettios" deals with the perception others have when they think she is not a native speaker.

I hope you enjoyed our carnival this month! Please do not hesitate to pass on the message! Tweet it, share it on Facebook, invite people to read and participate! We are still a tiny minority on the network, but I can't see why that wouldn't change...

The next carnival will be held at Bilingual Readers on January 20th. So sign up to the newsletter, check out the schedule and most importantly: keep sharing those great bilingual and multilingual stories!

Thanks a lot,
Souad & Jan at BabelKid

E-Petition Home Education

Home Education e-petition

I know this has nothing to do with multilingualism. However, it is relevant to the fact that it is ok to be different. Variety is no threat, it is healthy to think individually while respecting other people's points of views and feelings. Nobody should be ill-judged just because they are or think different.


The UK Government is trying to rush through a new Bill which would fundamentally change the role of the state in family life. It would be contrary to European Human Rights Law and UK Law, and would put a huge foot in the door to having compulsory CRB checks and monitoring of parents.


This bill (if it goes through) may change the balance of power between state and parents and also change English law from its current premise of Innocent Until Proved Guilty.

If it goes through, the state will be in charge of home educated children and may have a greater say than their parents as to how they are educated. Local Authorities will have the right to enter the home. They also will be speaking to the child alone as part of this assessment.


This is all with no evidence of wrongdoing either by the individual family or the home educating community in general.

Logically, once this is through and Local Authorities have the right to enter one set of innocent people's homes and take their children aside to speak to them without their parents or other trusted adult present, then they might extend this to anyone whose parenting they want to assess - single parents, benefit claimants, the disabled, religious people, excessive breastfeeders, foreigners etc.

My eldest daughter goes to state school. However, I seriously considered home-education, and I would not rule it out if I felt it is the best option for my children and my family. I feel this Bill goes beyond the type of education you provide your children with. It goes against the Presumption of Innocence principle. This worries me.

This e-petition will send a clear message to the government. Please, everyone who is eligible to sign, please do. And let me still believe that this country is the great, free, respectful and non-judgemental country that I think it is.

(Parts of this post are largely inspired by other bloggers entries).