Linguistic Worries

Couldn't help wondering how the tables have turned in my Achulde's case after reading the post  'Speech' in UL's 'Diaries'. After he started going to 'Bright Vistas' day care in Bangalore, there was a dip in his ease with Malayalam. The language confusion syndrome had set in. At school, the care takers would be communicating in English, the Aayahs would be talking in Kannada  or Hindi and his caretaker was a tamilian who would speak to him in Malayalam that sounded like Tamil.

 Naturally, I was keen on my kid speaking good Malayalam wherever he was going to be, so we would speak to him in Malayalam only.After a couple of months, he could successfully manage to communicate to us in bits and pieces  using Malayalam words predominantly and some English words and a couple of Kannada words.We encouraged daily doses of Manjadi, and were really proud when he started reciting Malayalam rhymes.

 Now after moving to Trivandrum, I suddenly see that the tables have turned.He has not only picked up Malayalam beautifully, now he has stopped using the other languages altogether.I am in a situation where I need to see to it that he doesn't forget his English !!!.So I find myself speaking to him in English once in a while,though he makes it really obvious that he prefers to communicate in Malayalam.I insist on my children knowing English mainly because, knowing the husband as well as I do, you never know, when we'll decide to move to another city, just like that!!!

 Now in his lingo, pussy cat has become 'poocha poocha' and Bowbow/doggy has become 'patti patti'!!! And in the day care that he goes to in Trivandrum, they have a rabbit.When all the children run after it shouting 'Bunny,Bunny', hes the only one running shouting ' Moyalu, Moyalu'- mind you its not even Muyal, its Moyal for him :)

 Initially when I tried reading bed time stories to him at nite, he would just get up and leave. It took me some time  to realise that he was leaving 'coz he didn't understand what I was reading to him.That was not exactly in conformance with what I had read on the net on how children would love being read to, even if they didn't follow the language.But nowadays , he wont walk away, when I'm reading, but he's more interested in the pictures in the book. If I read to him in English, he'll make a story based on the pics and tell me in Malayalam!!!

Linguistic woes, huh!!! :)