How important is it? Most of the kids brought up in the west learn English first and then their mother tongue.. resulting in either really poor urdu/hindi/whichever or really heavy accents. My cousin’s kids (both born and brought up here) speak Hindi fluently (even have a bihari accent making people think they are fobs) but it’s because my cousin and bhabi refused to communicate with them in English at home for many years.
My husband has learnt to read and write Urdu but cannot speak it very fluently, he speaks it with that pathan type accent and mixes up ga and gi (male and female) alot. Infact if he doesn’t speak it for a week or more, he has alot of trouble communicating and has to think/search for the right words while conversing. It’s mainly because you will not hear anyone in his house speaking Urdu, that’s how he has been raised. It’s more work for me now because I have to teach him and speak with him regularly so that he doesn’t forget. I don’t like it one bit because I can speak it fluently and hope to teach my kids Urdu/Hindi before they can learn anything else. It’s something they should be proud of and good at.. so they can then teach their kids to do the same. It makes me sad at times to think that our traditions, culture and values are dying out
You are right, here we have the same problem, my husband born and bred in pakistan wants our daughter to learn urdu first, but she started nursary at age one and half and now she speaks german more, my husband corrects her but its hard to make her to communicate in urdu, though she understands but he is very persisent sometimes he refuses to understand what she is saying until she says it in Urdu. My niece and nephew dont speak much urdu, there father was raised here and they all talk german at home, and when they speak its very funny urdu, like she who is almost says tum instead of app to elders, thats why i talk to my daughter as app sometimes so that she learns the polite urdu first.
My husband has a punjabi speaking background; his chacha's/phuppo's and parents speak/spoke it fluently but my (late) fil who raised my husband didn't teach his childeren. My mil didn't raise my husband so she couldn't teach him either (she speaks english mostly herself). SO now my hubby understands both punjabi and urdu because he grew up with people around him that spoke punjabi (his daada/daadi mostly) but can not hold a conversation on his own in punjabi or urdu. The only person he does speak to in his broken punjabi is me and occasionally my parents. He's just not confident enough to practise it with others.
I on the other hand grew up with only urdu (and punjabi occasionally) at my parents house. I learnt dutch when I started school and is now my 'first' language (I speak it with my siblings and hubby). My dad made sure we only spoke urdu in our house and he also taught us how to read and write in urdu.
I am definitely planning to insh'allah teach my children urdu at my home. I need my husband's help with that though.
My sister has a three yr old son who understands everything in urdu but does not speak it. He only speaks in english even though his mom talks to him in urdu.
One of the biggest problems today is that kids don't learn their mother tongue at an early age. All blame should be put on the parents/guardians. They should, from the start, communicate in Urdu with their children. English, French, German, Spanish, they will learn once they start school but Urdu they will not learn in school. Unfortunately, parents think if we give them a "head start" in English, they will excel... yeah right, goray kids eat drink English and are they excelling? lol Anyways, it's funny and sad at times when you meet Pakistani kids who grew up here not knowing even simple of words. Don't blame them.. parents not doing their job.
One of the biggest problems today is that kids don't learn their mother tongue at an early age. All blame should be put on the parents/guardians. They should, from the start, communicate in Urdu with their children. English, French, German, Spanish, they will learn once they start school but Urdu they will not learn in school. Unfortunately, parents think if we give them a "head start" in English, they will excel... yeah right, goray kids eat drink English and are they excelling? lol Anyways, it's funny and sad at times when you meet Pakistani kids who grew up here not knowing even simple of words. Don't blame them.. parents not doing their job.
Well its easy said as done, we do speak mostly Urdu at home and my husband is a master in urdu/punjabi/patwaari/arabic/english but as she started nursary early, she got influenced by the kids and care takers there and learned that language earlier but doesnt mean that we will not develop her .. she is already learning english from a toy we bought her and her urdu is improving. Soon she is going to pakistan with us for 4 weeks and hopefully she will learn a lot there Insahallah, as will have lots of cousins around to speak to.
I talk to my kids in English, Urdu and Arabic but I don't mix them together and that's why they're doing fine, when they speak in Urdu they don't mix it with English or Arabic.
Only need is to speak to your kid A LOT and read to them a lot.
There are even bilingual book for kids in the library....quite good.
Well its easy said as done, we do speak mostly Urdu at home and my husband is a master in urdu/punjabi/patwaari/arabic/english but as she started nursary early, she got influenced by the kids and care takers there and learned that language earlier but doesnt mean that we will not develop her .. she is already learning english from a toy we bought her and her urdu is improving. Soon she is going to pakistan with us for 4 weeks and hopefully she will learn a lot there Insahallah, as will have lots of cousins around to speak to.
the first few years can be quite challenging, but at the same time first 5 years of a child's life are most important. Their brains are like sponges so feed them with knowledge.
I have 3-5 year old children in my Nursery school, learning french once a week, and seriously u will be shocked how much they have learnt from a 30 minute lesson once a week
if you want ur children to understand and speak urdu then it's important to continue speaking urdu with them at home and make it fun. and eventually they will learn both languages, sing urdu songs to them, u can even re-tell a classic story like "little red Ridding hood" (or what ever interest ur child)and change the words to urdu, Ask open ended question in urdu etc...etc..
speak your own language and ure kids will pick up.. we were surrounded by goray growing up .. but my parents didnt allow us kids to speak anything but urdu at home. we cant read it that well and writing is an issue too.. but we can speak it very well and fluently. my parents themselves spoke only urdu at home and with each other
once we kids grew up and even now.. we talk mostly english amongst ourselves and urdu with folks.. and there isnt a chance of forgetting our native tongue
my husband was born and raised in denmark and it was the same at his place.. parents would talk only and only urdu at home.. he and his sis talk in danish with each other with some urdu.. but both are very fluent in their mother tongue.
husband and i talk in mostly english but will stop doing so once we have a kid. same thing when it starts school.. even then we wont tlak in danish cuz the child will have more than enuff ways of learning danish but not any other way of learning urdu, other than from its folks.
the govt of denmark actually supports parents speaking to their kids in their native tongue and not in danish at home.. it was the same way in TO. makes sense.
Worrying about the kids living in foreign countries speaking foreign languages :)
What about those , born and bred in Pakistan , and they speak wrong Urdu .
If parents have no keen interest in their native language , whether urdu or hindi , and by interest I mean enthusiasm and affection at scholarly level , it doesn’t matter where your child is born and raised .
Where you applaud your child for singing ‘God save our gracious Queen ‘ , ya may also appreciate him /her speaking native language .
I think its really important to hold on to these things, inshallah I want for my kids to know both Urdu and Arabic!!! Its going to be hard but I hope we can do it
I don't like the idea of kids learning english before they can learn to communicate with the language of the house and parents. My son, who just turned 3, speaks punjabi and mixes that with urdu as if he grew up in a village back home. He also uses english as well in his words but we hardly speak english with him so that comes naturally as did punjabi.
Kids will learn english and spanish in schools regardless if you teach them or not. They are bound to learn it and pick up english vocabulary from cartoons and shows they watch on TV... but once that time has passed, it would be impossible for them to learn and stick to their culture and communicate with parents effectly. Once you start speaking just english, your behaviour and thought process is also shaped around it. And we all know type of respect threshold english language has when it comes to elders, parents, etc.
My daughters understand urdu very well and the older one did OK speaking it when her dadi lived with us. Now she seems to be getting out of practice. However, recently since she started going for Qur'an classes, her intermingling with other desi kids has turned her interest towards Urdu again as many little girls her age speak excellent Urdu. So now she responds back to us in Urdu. We do have to work harder at it though.
I think its important for my boys to learn Urdu, its the language of their father and part of their heritage. Its hard because its only my hubby who speaks it and we have little family nearby. But middle guy is learning Urdu and Spanish and little one knows a few words of Urdu. I also recently got one of those Rosetta stone programs for myself. But its too hard for eldest who has speech trouble with just english so thats the language of focus and concentration at home.
I have cousins who were born in the US and bred in Canada and even though their parents strictly speak urdu and punjabi at home, and have desi channels on tv, the cousins still have trouble iwth urdu. They speak it with a pathan accent and mix the -gi and -ga together. They still speak in urdu at home so i am not sure what else can be done to fix their language.
I personally don't think it's a big deal if you do or don't. We live in such a blended society.
I know how to read, write urdu. I understand punjabi. I think my children will probably understand urdu but won't be able to read or write it.
About the accent thing - it varies. I have friends that have lived in a very desi community so their urdu is very good with no accent. And then there are kids - like my bro that asked the "gajaray song" from Bubli and Bunti and why she was singing about carrots :) (gajar)
My parents gave really high emphasis on his islamic teachings and not his culture - so he may comprehend urdu that much - mA he's an awesome muslim. Better than all other siblings that were raised so culturally.
Personally I don't get too excited about this issue. My kids can understand urdu, and can talk in urdu, though not very fluently. During their annual visit to Pakistan they suddenly start talking very fluently. Here, at home we (parents) talk in urdu, and kids reply in English. I assume in due course they will be typical ABCDs with funny urdu accent too. But the question is... does it really matter. For some, the answer is an emphatic YES!!! Not me. I don't think them speaking or not speaking Urdu has a huge bearing on whether we have raised them to be a good and decent human being, a responsible citizen or, even a good muslim. Urdu has pretty much nothing to do with any of it.
I'd like my kids to be multi-lingual, and if they can learn Urdu that will be great. It will help them communicate with older relatives in Pakistan (who pretty much only speak urdu), and it will preserve in them some connection to the cultural heritage.
But for that to happen, kids need to see the value too. Even if we make sure that our kids understand Urdu, what are the chances of their kids being the same? For those who have moved out of Pakistan; to expect the 3rd and 4th generation to still be speaking the native language is probably expecting a bit too much. If it happens, great. If not, just live with it. My kids can now read Quranic Arabic, but I also want to learn full Arabic. Also Chinese, French and Spanish. Yes, I have high expectations :)
My siblings and I were taught Punjabi and English simultaneously. We grew up in a huge house with my grandparents and my dads 4 younger brothers. From a very young age I knew that I could only speak English with my dad and chachay and Punjabi with grandparents and mum. My grandad will still try to speak to me in English ( even trying Geordie!) but I will always reply in Punjabi.
My cousins taught their children only urdu at home and they learnt English at school, but it was difficult as teachers thought they had only just moved from Pakistani so classed them as EAL (which parents found difficult to deal with) but they were born and bred in England.
I did my BSc dissertation on Bilingual Lexical Memory in 7-9 year old and my findings were that children who spoke both languages fluently were able to recall more words in both languages.
In my class I have a child who was born in France and moved to England a years ago, her mother speaks only French to her and her father will speak only English, this works really well as she is one of the brightest lasses in my class.
