Not speaking your Mother-tongue

As I said before, our dog speaks Serbian. I commented last time that this gets me into trouble in Croatia (sedi, sijedi, sidi), but I neglected to mention that it causes a rather obvious problem in Germany. We both traveled last week, meaning that we had to dump Monitsa in a dogs home, and though I tried to tell the keepers that Moni spoke Serbian, they didn't seem much interested in tailoring their Deutsch dog supervision techniques accordingly. However, the husband of the pair did mention that he understood a few words of Serbocroatian, since his mother was from Croatia. And by a few words, he meant and Dobar dan and Hvala and not much else. So his Mother tongue, was really his Father's tongue only, since he barely spoke a word of his Mother's.

I wouldn't have batted an eyelid had it not been that this was the latest of many examples of people like this I've met in Germany and to a lesser extent in England: namely, those who speak barely a word of one of their parents' languages. And add to this untold numbers of couples where one half does not speak the language of the other.

Now I currently work in a very polyglot environment. We work in English, live in Germany and come from everywhere. Only a few stray English people speak only one language, and even many of them try their damnedest to learn at least German. People are young, meaning that there are many kids about, and it often impresses me how many languages kids can learn simultaneously seemingly without too much incident. E.g. Tartar with Mother, Russian with Father, German at School, and of course English out of general necessity. It greatly surprises me, then, to see so many examples of second generation immigrants who speak nothing at all of their language of origin.

I often wonder what possesses people, moreover, not to speak their native language with their children. Or for that matter, how one half of a relationship has no apparent desire to speak the language of the other. How, after all, can you ever really understand somebody if you can't speak to them in your most comfortable manner? And what about all of the relations? These days people in (e.g.) Eastern Europe always speak English, or at least try to, but German is on the decline anywhere in the former Yugoslavia except the Croatian coast for obvious tourist-driven reasons. Speaking to relations is obviously important to form bonds with them, but even this doesn't seem always to change attitudes. In one instance, half-Serbian Germans actually spoke no word of Serbian despite having spent nearly a month every summer in Vojvodina with their mother's relatives.

One pattern emerges. The people in this category are not - despite being in cross-cultural relationships - usually very worldly. And I suspect that a feeling of envy runs through one half of the relationship at the thought that a child will speak a language that they have never bothered to learn. Maybe they think there is no point in learning a language - what use would Croatian be ever? (As a Canadian from Alberta, I certainly understand this rather redneck statement, since many simple folk feel this way about French) Or perhaps they think that two languages will confuse a developing child - advice from monoglot, unworldly grandparents might help to reach this conclusion. And if I can be permitted to add a sniff of racism to the argument, I have yet to see a case of a German/French, German/Italian or German/English couple where the children do not speak both languages.

Whatever the reason, I think it is a crying shame. I think that any language enriches a person, and even has practical advantages (Serbian or Croatian will ultimately help somebody speak/understand Russian for example). An opportunity to learn a language from a native early in life is not to be missed, no matter what theories, prejudices, hang-ups or insecurities a monoglot partner has.