Bringing up a Multilingual Child

Back on track about how it is actually to bring up a child in a multilingual family, in our case Russian-Hindi-English-a little bit Punjabi... now that's enough I think.

Russian language 

Long before my little A was born I decided that I would speak only Russian and would make it a language of communication at least between two of us. I have been speaking Russian with him since then, mixing it with English words here and there on the way (like ешь it - eat this).
However communication alone will not suffice for him to learn my mother tongue. Written word is also very important so that he sees the Russian language around, its usage, and understands that this language has equal rights with others. For that purpose I always keep a calendar on the wall which is usually given by my parents every year.
Little A has his own backpack, gifted by my Lebanese friend, in which we store all the books. Every day little A brings  this precious bag of books, and we start reading, he comments, points at the pictures, asks to turn the page or not to...
My parents provided many books for A, so we don't have lack of Cyrillic written words.Some of them were gifted by our friend from Moscow, who also has an Indian husband and two kids. So she knows how it is raising children in a mixed family. She brought most popular children authors of all times A. Barto  (А. Барто), S. Marshak (С. Маршак) and K.Tchukovsky (К.Чуковский).

S. Marshak poems and tales for children

Agniya Barto, poems for children. (Агния Барто, Стихи для детей)

"Hare", one of the most known short poems by A. Barto.

                                             

"Elephant" ("Слон")

He loves seeing pictures in the book by K. Tchukovsky (К. Чуковский) "Wash'em clean" "Мойдодыр" - it's a book about a boy who was so dirty that all his belongings ran away from him.. so in order to gain them back he had to take a good bath :D

He absolutely loves a little book  called Сорока-сорока (Magpie-magpie). This is a folklore nursery rhyme which you say to a child while making circles on his palm, and then press each finger tip as the story goes... He tries to do this with my hand too :)

 I read him this alphabet book too, and he repeats A, О, У vowels :)

There are as well folktales, fairy tales, poems available for little A, and many good reads are with my parents, and  I can't wait to introduce my little boy to them.

I show him Russian cartoons from time to time too, like Domovyonok Kuzya (a Hob?), so he hears the speech not only from me. Many of my friends who live in India say that it is difficult to inculcate your language when the environment is not there. But as soon as I don't have an option of staying in my country, I shall use other means in order to make it happen. I need to put an effort.
So as you see his exposure to Russian language is limited to my speech, books, cartoons, and Skype with his grand parents. I am not going to overburden him with it, but just wanting to lit up interest in his mother's tongue. My D however is learning Russian now and is on his second year at the University, so I expect a little help from him too :)

English language

English makes a big entry in our day to day communication.
Among the books introduced to A is his favourite Little Red Riding Hood, which I purchased in the bookstore because of its illustrations. It was long before little A was born, but I knew it right there then that it was going to be for my baby.

This one is an old Indian edition of short stories found among many old books my in-laws keep with them. The stories are too long for my A, and have slightly strange plots to my liking.

 Moreover his exposure to English language will increase when he goes to school, as mostly all the playschool programs here are in English, just like the one I used to work for. Hence I don't have much worry for this language, he will definitely learn it.

Hindi language.

Absolutely everywhere. Speech at home and outside, children's TV channels ...BUT little A has no Hindi books as of now, only newspapers, in which he likes to point at the words written in Devanagari. Beside,s of course, little A will be learning it at school.

Punjabi language

Exposure is very limited to occasional conversations by my in-laws. D doesn't speak Punjabi at home, but only when it is required. However this language is taught in many schools here in UT.
I know I take sides - I wrote the most about Russian :P ))) However aiming to bring my A up with the knowledge of three languages I would not like to enforce any of them but implement in such a way that he enjoys this unique opportunity and uses it later in life effortlessly.
Until Little A starts speaking we won;t get to know which one of the languages he would prefer, but just recently he started trying to say the word "bird" in Russian (ptica "птица").. Yey!!! I win! lol

Have a nice day! Just one more day left, and we can enjoy our weekend :)

Which Language? Intercultural Couples' Communication

I love everything related to language and literature, and it wasn't at all surprising when I chose to become a philologist, a person who loves "word", just like my Mom. Different types of language, be it spoken, written, body, sign, help us to convey and ... connect.
I remember when we had one of the general linguistics lessons in the university, we came to the subject of language families. That was when I  discovered the variety of languages which exist. I took particular interest as I recollect now in Indo-European family which is the largest, and looked through the line-listing of the languages of India ... Oh my! How many of them were there I couldn't remember and pronounce their names at all, and only  few months later I myself was put into that language environment.                                                                
To tell the truth I wanted to be ready before I reached India, and started learning Hindi in my city. I did it because I was curious and inspired by love. It also happens that both the partners have the same native language they can use in all areas of their lives, but what to do when your native languages are different? I will not touch here the situation when partners live in a country which puts its own linguistic demands on both.
Our own experience is such - my husband's mother tongue is Hindi and my is Russian.
In our case comes the universal medium - English language. We chose this way because my Indian boy couldn't speak Russian at all that time, and I still hadn't developed my Hindi speaking skills.
We have Indo-Russian families who have different approach to this problem. In one family a wife speaks Russian, while husband speaks both, Russian and Hindi. English is not used at home much.
Two other families have both the parents speaking both the languages, depending on a situation, and I consider this to be an ideal variant, and that's how I'd like our communication to be.
One more "method" of communication I  got to know in the university was that some multilingual families learn and involve a third language like Esperanto  for daily communication. 
Okay, we still speak English with each other, but I in my turn learnt quite enough Hindi to watch TV and movies and understand what people say, and converse when I need it (let me boast more - read and write); my D also can speak Russian a little, knows alphabet and can write. In modern India though English is more than enough to feel yourself comfortable, and there is no obligation for foreigners residing here to learn Hindi in order to get good job or lift their social status.
However, at times it is not easy to make a person who speaks your own language to understand you. It is double fold difficult when you and your partner are using different language systems, because language also represents culture, it bears its concepts, and knowledge which have been accumulating for centuries! In many ways if intercultural couples don't at least try to learn each other's native languages, they miss on understanding their partner's inner world, his or her mentality, ways of life he or she chooses, and many other small things which are in fact important for a successful cultural blend :) But if you try may be the reaction of your loved one can be as such:

Dear friends, what is your opinion on this topic? Is it important for you that your partner speaks your language? Or do you think that love can break any language barriers?