If it takes the whole village to raise a child, then I believe it takes at least two to raise a bilingual child. Unfortunately, families are largely left alone in their endeavour of transmitting the minority or heritage language within the diaspora. However, this task often falls mainly on one person in the family: mum.
In our case, no one but me, the female parent, could have taken this task on. This is because I am the single carrier of the Serbian language and culture in our family. The father of my children was (until recently) a monolingual English speaker.
I wrote about our beginnings as a bilingual family and challenges that came with it in here. To sum up, back when we had only Klara, the question about what the three of us would do with our two languages was raised. Tom didn’t understand the Serbian that Klara and I communicated in. Conscious of the fact that switching to English in his presence would further decrease Klara’s exposure to her mother tongue, we agreed that Tom would try and learn on the go, while we translated bits of what we have said to him.
A STEP FURTHER
Having realised that being familiar with Serbian would be beneficial to both our relationship and the bilingualism we wanted to achieve within our family, Tom went a step further. When he was on paternity leave with our younger child and while we were all in Belgrade for an extended period of time, he enrolled into a Serbian language course for foreigners. He did this at his own initiative. After he completed the course, he found an online Serbian language teacher. He has been having weekly conversation classes with her for the past four years.
BENEFITS
Firstly, Tom understands the Serbian that our kids and I use in front of him. Consequently, he doesn’t feel left out. Also, there is no need for us to constantly translate what we have said. When people ask me (and trust me, this question pops up quite often) how Tom’s Serbian is, I sincerely say that I cannot talk behind his back any more, because he understands.
Then, in front of the children, I often address him in Serbian. He makes an effort to reply in Serbian, and often he’ll start the conversation in my language. The consequence of this is that our children see and hear that Tata makes an effort, that he is able to understand and speak Serbian. This signals to them that Serbian is not only Mama’s language, but the language of our family. That it has the equal status to English and that it is important to preserve it.
Finally, when we are having dinner, he started speaking exclusively Serbian at the table. Again, he did this at his own initiative after I have read pages and pages of literature on this topic to him. Dinner is one part of the day when the four of us make an effort to speak Serbian all together. Even though it would sometimes be much easier to explain things to him in English, I motivate our children to “help Tata speak Serbian because “he doesn’t have much chance to“. Therefore, dinner is not only an excellent opportunity for Tata to practice his Serbian, but also a good excuse for our children’s Serbian to increase, because they mainly speak English with their dad.
LET ME CLARIFY
Serbian is not the language we exclusively use at home. We do not follow a Minority Language at Home strategy. Tom still primarily communicates in English with Klara and Oliver. His Serbian is good, but I often wonder “Jesus, how is it possible that he doesn’t understand this?“. I hope I managed to paint you the picture.
HUGE DIFFERENCE
However, the fact that Tata is familiar with Serbian as much as he is and that he uses it creates an improved dynamic in the family. This dynamic is different than the one in which Tata doesn’t understand Serbian or in which he GOD FORBID feels excluded because he is not acquainted with Mama’s minority language! In our family, the language situation is far from balanced, but is more fair.
Now, here’s a question: If they feel excluded, why don’t majority language speaking parents start learning the minority language their partner speaks and tries to pass on to their children? Why does, in the majority of the cases, the parent who is the carrier of the minority language switch to the dominant language in their partner’s presence? I’m sorry but when a couple is trying to raise bilingual children, knowing how to say “hello“, “goodbye“ and “cheers“ in the partner’s minority language is simply not enough.
STRENGTH
The other day we had a playdate with a trilingual family. They use English in school and in society. Mum and Dad speak Hebrew (mum’s language), kids learn Hebrew in Sunday school and speak it with mum. Dad’s language, French, is the weakest. He speaks it to the children, they understand, but do not reply back in it.
It’s obvious that Dad understands very well what kind of effort one needs to invest to teach their children the minority language. At one point he used the word sacrifice, trying to congratulate me on the fact that our children speak Serbian well.
He said that I must be a “strong woman, with an attitude“ when I managed to achieve this. He said his wife is the same when it comes to Hebrew and that him and my husband Tom both had to be attracted by that strength in us, their partners.
THINGS SHOULDN’T BE LIKE THIS
This was not the first time I heard about the female strength in this context. I wonder, are only “strong“ women those who succeed in transmitting their languages onto their own children? And if so, why is this the case? Because it shouldn’t be!
A woman needn’t be strong (whatever that strength meant) in order to persuade her husband to support her to maintain her language with their children. The most natural thing, I believe, is for her partner to do so, if not because of all the benefits that speaking a mother tongue (or any tongue in fact) brings, then because this is important to her, his wife. The woman he loves, he decided to spend his life with and have children with. To go a step further, I would argue that it is crucial the partner puts in some effort and starts learning his partner’s language. Just as Tom did.
I am conscious that back when Tom and I had conversations about languages in our family, if I didn’t remain persistent and consistent in my intention to address our children solely in Serbian, even in his presence, our children wouldn’t be proficient in Serbian as they are today. Maybe they wouldn’t even speak it. Despite my strength, I am endlessly grateful to him for adopting Serbian and supporting me in language endeavours.
INSIST
From experience I know this is a very sensitive, at times even painful topic. Equally I believe it is one we should talk about more. I believe it is very important couples have conversations on this topic before they have children. However, if children are already there, then now is the right moment to have these talks.
In a fair partner relationship, I think, the dominant language speaking parent should make an effort and learn their partner’s minority language. They are capable of it, the question is just how much they (don’t) care. I’ll repeat. They are capable of it. Just as much as our children are capable of being bilingual or multilingual. But the role of the parents plays a huge role in here.
IT IS EASIER AS TWO
In a world and societies where there is no system support for maintenance of minority languages, it is far easier as two than if you are completely alone!