Before my son was even born, we knew that Urdu would be an important part of raising him. It was our intention to shove as much Urdu as we could in his general vicinity, including forcing him to study it into his teenage years, in the hope that he will have some fluency as an adult. The only thing we are intent on avoiding is that he'll feel cut off from his heritage and decide to become a filmmaker and make a coming-to-terms-with-my-father's-homeland movie.
In all seriousness, I think that it can only benefit him to feel connected and comfortable with the places he comes from - Pakistan and America both. We live in America, we speak English all the time and live a regular busy American life and he's close with his American grandparents. His Pakistani half is always in the background, but it's just that - the background. So we overemphasize it in some ways so that it hopefully some of that background sticks. I just want him to be a well adjusted, self assured adult. I want him to know where he comes from, where his parents came from, and to feel as comfortable as possible moving around in the world. Who hasn't heard of a person who has some discomfort with their parents heritage - I just don't want that to be my son. Language - Urdu - is a big part of that.
Not everyone is okay with that. I have heard people tell me that we shouldn't teach him Urdu, for varying reasons, none of which I buy into. That it will slow down his language development, that he's a poor confused baby, that he's in America now with no use or benefit to be derived from wasting his time on Urdu.
I'm not a linguist and I have no background in language except that I am an amateur English grammar freak. But even then I don't actually know how to diagram a sentence, I just know when something *sounds* right, generally. And I use proper punctuation, even in text messages. And I took 2 years of forgettable French in high school. But the methods of teaching language are a mystery to me. I read up a bit when I was still pregnant, and our pediatrician spoke with us after he was born and suggested that we stick to our own languages; M should speak in Urdu, exclusively, and I should speak in English, exclusivery. And that's what we did, mostly.
The baby picked up a bit, but not much. I read and worred that his language development would be delayed because of being exposed to two languages, and honestly, it was. By his 2 year old checkup, his pediatrician said he was supposed to have 50 words and he had only a dozen. The doctor wasn't worried though "Oh, he's being raised bilingually?" she said "Oh then he's doing fine, good job, keep it up!" I talked to other mothers about it too, whose kids were chatting up a storm. Don't worry about it, they said, he's being raised bilingually! I even called out county, which gives free language screenings "Bilingual!" they all said. I couldn't seem to explain it properly. It wasn't that I was overly worried, or that I was considering stopping the Urdu, I just wanted an evaluation of his language abilities. Surely linguistic evaluaters of children would be able to factor in the biligual part into the evaluation of his language ability, right?
Then one day, everything seemed to click into place for him and he was speaking a lot more Urdu and English both. Strangely, it seemed like it was our most recent trip to Pakistan that straightened out his language. Like fianally being immersed in Urdu, even for just 30 days, got him to realize the difference and whens and whos of speaking Urdu. Mommy = English, Abbu=Urdu. America=English, Pakistan=Urdu. Then just a month later, Chachoo arrived. The his chachee, Dulhan. And then his Urdu REALLY picke up.
After Dulhan, the baby's Urdu just exploded. Within the first week, she corrected something that the baby said, that he'd been saying for a long time actually, and I realized that Mian hadn't been correcting him barely at all. He was just so excited to hear Urdu coming from his son that he hadn't thought to correct his mistakes except a few really glaring ones. But Urdu has so many things to get wrong, subject-verb agreement, gender of innanimate objects, levels of respect. As soon as he had Dulhan correcting him, it was clear that helped his Urdu a lot. (And now everyone corrects him.) Dulhan also holds Urdu lessons with the baby, where he's learning the Urdu alphabet and has begun writing the letters these days. Before Dulhan, Mian had a powerpoint presentation of the letters that they used to go through occassionally, but not every day.
Since Dulhan's arrival and ther baby's Urdu advancements, we've even reevaluated our language policies. I'm not sure now that one-language-per-parent is the best strategy for our son. I'm worred about speaking Urdu in front of him though, because if I speak incorrectly, I'm worried about negatively impacting his Urdu. Pidgin, right? But the things I know I say correctly, I try to say in Urdu. It can only help to have as much Urdu exposure I think. Because it's clear that it was increased exposure that helped our son. Before Chachoo and Dulhan, it was just Mian and me around the baby. You'd think that means 50% Urdu and 50% English, but that's way off. ALL conversations between adults in our house, the conversations with the big words, were held in English. Now, I'm a tiny minority and the baby hears lots of new words in adult conversations held entirely in Urdu.
One confession though, I often use Urdu when I want to yell at him in public without being overheard-slash-judged by people around me, especially his doting grandparents and great grandparents. And nowadays when I speak in Urdu, he'll say "No, Mommy, you speak English!" and when I say "Ji nahin, main Urdu bol sukti hoon!" he just laughs at me. Not the best confidence booster, let me tell you.
In all seriousness, I think that it can only benefit him to feel connected and comfortable with the places he comes from - Pakistan and America both. We live in America, we speak English all the time and live a regular busy American life and he's close with his American grandparents. His Pakistani half is always in the background, but it's just that - the background. So we overemphasize it in some ways so that it hopefully some of that background sticks. I just want him to be a well adjusted, self assured adult. I want him to know where he comes from, where his parents came from, and to feel as comfortable as possible moving around in the world. Who hasn't heard of a person who has some discomfort with their parents heritage - I just don't want that to be my son. Language - Urdu - is a big part of that.
Not everyone is okay with that. I have heard people tell me that we shouldn't teach him Urdu, for varying reasons, none of which I buy into. That it will slow down his language development, that he's a poor confused baby, that he's in America now with no use or benefit to be derived from wasting his time on Urdu.
I'm not a linguist and I have no background in language except that I am an amateur English grammar freak. But even then I don't actually know how to diagram a sentence, I just know when something *sounds* right, generally. And I use proper punctuation, even in text messages. And I took 2 years of forgettable French in high school. But the methods of teaching language are a mystery to me. I read up a bit when I was still pregnant, and our pediatrician spoke with us after he was born and suggested that we stick to our own languages; M should speak in Urdu, exclusively, and I should speak in English, exclusivery. And that's what we did, mostly.
The baby picked up a bit, but not much. I read and worred that his language development would be delayed because of being exposed to two languages, and honestly, it was. By his 2 year old checkup, his pediatrician said he was supposed to have 50 words and he had only a dozen. The doctor wasn't worried though "Oh, he's being raised bilingually?" she said "Oh then he's doing fine, good job, keep it up!" I talked to other mothers about it too, whose kids were chatting up a storm. Don't worry about it, they said, he's being raised bilingually! I even called out county, which gives free language screenings "Bilingual!" they all said. I couldn't seem to explain it properly. It wasn't that I was overly worried, or that I was considering stopping the Urdu, I just wanted an evaluation of his language abilities. Surely linguistic evaluaters of children would be able to factor in the biligual part into the evaluation of his language ability, right?
Then one day, everything seemed to click into place for him and he was speaking a lot more Urdu and English both. Strangely, it seemed like it was our most recent trip to Pakistan that straightened out his language. Like fianally being immersed in Urdu, even for just 30 days, got him to realize the difference and whens and whos of speaking Urdu. Mommy = English, Abbu=Urdu. America=English, Pakistan=Urdu. Then just a month later, Chachoo arrived. The his chachee, Dulhan. And then his Urdu REALLY picke up.
After Dulhan, the baby's Urdu just exploded. Within the first week, she corrected something that the baby said, that he'd been saying for a long time actually, and I realized that Mian hadn't been correcting him barely at all. He was just so excited to hear Urdu coming from his son that he hadn't thought to correct his mistakes except a few really glaring ones. But Urdu has so many things to get wrong, subject-verb agreement, gender of innanimate objects, levels of respect. As soon as he had Dulhan correcting him, it was clear that helped his Urdu a lot. (And now everyone corrects him.) Dulhan also holds Urdu lessons with the baby, where he's learning the Urdu alphabet and has begun writing the letters these days. Before Dulhan, Mian had a powerpoint presentation of the letters that they used to go through occassionally, but not every day.
Since Dulhan's arrival and ther baby's Urdu advancements, we've even reevaluated our language policies. I'm not sure now that one-language-per-parent is the best strategy for our son. I'm worred about speaking Urdu in front of him though, because if I speak incorrectly, I'm worried about negatively impacting his Urdu. Pidgin, right? But the things I know I say correctly, I try to say in Urdu. It can only help to have as much Urdu exposure I think. Because it's clear that it was increased exposure that helped our son. Before Chachoo and Dulhan, it was just Mian and me around the baby. You'd think that means 50% Urdu and 50% English, but that's way off. ALL conversations between adults in our house, the conversations with the big words, were held in English. Now, I'm a tiny minority and the baby hears lots of new words in adult conversations held entirely in Urdu.
One confession though, I often use Urdu when I want to yell at him in public without being overheard-slash-judged by people around me, especially his doting grandparents and great grandparents. And nowadays when I speak in Urdu, he'll say "No, Mommy, you speak English!" and when I say "Ji nahin, main Urdu bol sukti hoon!" he just laughs at me. Not the best confidence booster, let me tell you.
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