I’m a Mom with an Accent…

And why it’s never too early to ‘acquire’ one!

Languages are lovely. I speak 3 and follow several more. My husband does even better.

I grew up in India, so the concept of being multilingual is neither unique nor wondrous. A country with 22 major languages (plus, English as ‘business official’), each spoken by millions, will do that to you.

Living in the U.S now and raising a child here, mine is the lament of every immigrant parent — the predominance of English in her life! I know from having watched scores of other kids, that as she grows older, the hesitation to talk and respond in another language will only escalate.

Like so many of her peers, the mother tongue (or first language) can end up becoming either a symbol of parental insistence, or the root of a confused cultural identity.

My nine year old daughter is fluent in English, but not in the other two languages we speak at home. In all honesty though, the parents are to blame for the English bias.

Our story is different from an average immigrant family — we don’t have a communication crisis at home, lingually speaking. The problem with us is too much English — I grew up speaking it and like many others from urban India, use it as my main language.

But I’m also comfortable in the knowledge that I can say the word ‘expression’ in 25 different ways.

Not so my child.

And therein lies my fear. That languages and their varied beauty might end up being lost to her.

Yes, I want her to learn more than one, because I passionately believe in the impact on cognitive abilities that comes from speaking multiple languages. Research confirms that a child can process several languages easily without any real confusion. There are advantages during travel, not just in the ease of getting by, but also in the amazing insights that you can glean.

But there’s a lot more.

With interesting idioms and speech patterns, a language is much more than mere words. Each has unique prose, filled with nuances that are worth appreciating.

I often tell her that Namaste is more than just a greeting. I want her to know why members of my husband’s family never say I’m leaving — because it’s so final. Instead, their parting words always are I will return.

I’d love to see her enjoy popular culture, as we did. Growing up on a staple diet of Hindi speaking Bollywood cinema, we still relish its unabashed sentimentality and over-the-top drama. Interestingly, so does our little girl, even though she doesn’t always get the dialogue or the context. Sub-titles help but also defeat the purpose :-)

So yes, I want my child to know all this. Heck, I want her to get the punch lines of the family jokes without the humor getting lost in translation!

In the oneness of the world that embraces English — business, popular media, literature and academia — one wonders if she will discover the pleasure of different languages. Of their ability to describe in infinite ways a sweet memory, a teardrop, or the fragility of hope...

I’d love for her to go beyond that single language dimension, no matter how universal.

And I try.

S goes to a school where a lot of parents and some of the teachers were born in a different country. Our home helper speaks Portuguese and Spanish, and her best friends Romanian and Tamil. We talk about poetry and word origins. She was excited to learn that some of the words we use, like guru and chutney, are in the English dictionary and a part of the mainstream lexicon. Or that al dente was born in the same country as her beloved pasta.

We travel, and will do more as she grows older. But beyond the lingo, our desire is to embrace and truly learn from the amazing salad bowl that the world is.

And we want to show her that languages aren’t a sign of cultural divide, but rather, a rich tapestry of expressions and experiences.

She has slowly become comfortable with 2 Indian languages — admittedly, at our behest. But I was truly excited the day S brought me a book of the Hindi alphabet and asked if I could help her read and write the script, and not just speak.

Sure, fluency is a long way off. So is the appreciation.

But it’s a start.