Adventures in Arabic and Assyrian
Apr 6, 2019 17:28:44 GMT 9
Post by Megan C. on Apr 6, 2019 17:28:44 GMT 9
Hello fellow zookeepers,
I'm starting this thread as a way to track our family's trilingual journey. I'm hoping to be more active on this site now that my son is becoming a little chatterbox and the effect of our multilingual environment is starting to show. Our family also has big changes coming in our future, so we have some reflecting to do about how we approach our languages!
Our background: I'm from the US and was raised monolingual English; I learned Arabic as an adult and I've been living and working in Iraq for seven years. I am fluent in Iraqi dialect though, of course, there are always more words to learn! My husband is Iraqi Christian and speaks Assyrian (his mother tongue, language of the Christian community here) and Arabic. When our son was born we started OPOL - English with me, Assyrian with my husband, and my husband and I speak Arabic together. My son's daycare also uses Arabic.
Where we are now: They say babies either focus on walking or talking first - well, my son was a late walker (almost 15 months) but he started saying his first few words just after a year and now, at 21 months, he knows scores of words in both English and Assyrian, plus some in Arabic (maybe more from daycare that we don't know about!). He is our little parrot and will repeat anything he hears. At this point I would say he's a little stronger in Assyrian, which is fine with me because it's a less prestigious and also unwritten language and will be harder to maintain in the future. I try to read with him in English most days, and occasionally I get my husband to "read" a book to my son in Assyrian (translating and/or making it up from the pictures) - my husband comes from a primarily oral culture so reading aloud is a new habit for him.
In other news, we are expecting baby #2 in August and are excited to continue our multilingual journey with her! I'm especially curious which language(s) our kids will choose to speak with each other - and which one we should encourage the most. (Right now my son talks to his toys and the cat mostly in Assyrian.)
Challenges: Sometime around the end of this year, we will be moving to the US, which will be a big transition and bring new challenges in our language journey. Specifically, as English becomes the ML and Arabic a ml, we have to decide how to adjust to maintain all three languages. I posted about this a few days ago and Raquel suggested that I switch to speaking Arabic at home. It makes sense but it would take some getting used to! Even then, if I speak Arabic with the kids AND with my husband, it has the potential to crowd out Assyrian. Also, my husband is starting to learn English to prepare for the move, so I'm not sure how that will affect the dynamics yet. At any rate, we have several months left so we have some time to prepare
Exciting developments: My parents (who only speak English) will be coming to visit us for about 2 weeks when the new baby comes, so it will be great for my son to bond with them and be exposed to more English!
I'm starting this thread as a way to track our family's trilingual journey. I'm hoping to be more active on this site now that my son is becoming a little chatterbox and the effect of our multilingual environment is starting to show. Our family also has big changes coming in our future, so we have some reflecting to do about how we approach our languages!
Our background: I'm from the US and was raised monolingual English; I learned Arabic as an adult and I've been living and working in Iraq for seven years. I am fluent in Iraqi dialect though, of course, there are always more words to learn! My husband is Iraqi Christian and speaks Assyrian (his mother tongue, language of the Christian community here) and Arabic. When our son was born we started OPOL - English with me, Assyrian with my husband, and my husband and I speak Arabic together. My son's daycare also uses Arabic.
Where we are now: They say babies either focus on walking or talking first - well, my son was a late walker (almost 15 months) but he started saying his first few words just after a year and now, at 21 months, he knows scores of words in both English and Assyrian, plus some in Arabic (maybe more from daycare that we don't know about!). He is our little parrot and will repeat anything he hears. At this point I would say he's a little stronger in Assyrian, which is fine with me because it's a less prestigious and also unwritten language and will be harder to maintain in the future. I try to read with him in English most days, and occasionally I get my husband to "read" a book to my son in Assyrian (translating and/or making it up from the pictures) - my husband comes from a primarily oral culture so reading aloud is a new habit for him.
In other news, we are expecting baby #2 in August and are excited to continue our multilingual journey with her! I'm especially curious which language(s) our kids will choose to speak with each other - and which one we should encourage the most. (Right now my son talks to his toys and the cat mostly in Assyrian.)
Challenges: Sometime around the end of this year, we will be moving to the US, which will be a big transition and bring new challenges in our language journey. Specifically, as English becomes the ML and Arabic a ml, we have to decide how to adjust to maintain all three languages. I posted about this a few days ago and Raquel suggested that I switch to speaking Arabic at home. It makes sense but it would take some getting used to! Even then, if I speak Arabic with the kids AND with my husband, it has the potential to crowd out Assyrian. Also, my husband is starting to learn English to prepare for the move, so I'm not sure how that will affect the dynamics yet. At any rate, we have several months left so we have some time to prepare
Exciting developments: My parents (who only speak English) will be coming to visit us for about 2 weeks when the new baby comes, so it will be great for my son to bond with them and be exposed to more English!
There was a little more than I expected, but not enough (never enough!). My husband's family doesn't live near us but I might use the summer to grab native speakers of each language and record their oral traditions (children's songs, nursery rhymes, etc.). I'd love any other suggestions to prepare for this transition!
