to not teach my DS any English

[DewinDoeth]

Ok, moved from another thread as it seems to have got people going!

DS is two and speaks quite a lot, but only in Welsh.

I live in a Welsh-speaking community, I'm a native speaker and Welsh is my first language (in fact I'm a lecturer in Welsh lang&lit), my entire family are Welsh. DS attends a Welsh medium nursery 2 days a week, and is cared for by my mother 2 days a week. And me the other days! None of the carers speak English with him.
My DH has learnt Welsh to near-fluency, and only speaks Welsh with DS: it gives DH a chance to improve (slowly, with an nonjudgmental speaker ) and has given him a massive confidence boost when it comes to it.
I am not teaching DS any English at all, and I never speak English with him. DS will learn English quite naturally, mainly from the television, or from hearing it around when there are people who don't speak Welsh. It's how it was with me and my English is of a very high standard (no doubt there will be grammatical errors in this post now - but I have an Oxbridge PhD so it can't be all bad).

PILs are not Welsh, live 250 miles away, and have expressed sadness that 'they can't communicate with him'.
They learnt to say hello and thank you in Nepalese when they went on holiday, but despite knowing me for 10 years and my family for 6, they have never learnt any words of Welsh at all, not please or thank you, and say it's pointless because it's a dead language, and it's not an useful language.

Sorry for not reading whole thread (and for not speaking Welsh, though I can manage a few basics!) I'm surprised this has kicked off such an impassioned debate. Of course your child will learn English, and of course it's natural for you all to speak Welsh at home.

There seems to be quite a bit of resentment on both sides, wrt your PILs - this can't be only about language, surely?

Anyway, if they speak English to him, in the way you would normally speak to a small child, he will understand enough. It'd be nice to teach him to say "hello Grandma" and so forth in English - I bet you'd try to teach him a bit of French, if that was their language instead of English.

A friend of mine is Argentinian, her ex-husband is German; their son was brought up with both languages. When she and her son (then about seven or eight) came to live in England, he couldn't speak a word but went to the village school and within six months you wouldn't have known he wasn't a local lad - not the slightest hint of an accent. She and son then went to Geneva and now he is a fluent French speaker, too! That's four languages spoken like a native by the time he was eleven. That's got to be good and will up his employment prospects on it's own, not to mention an understanding of, and empathy with, the different cultures he's been exposed to. He took his Spanish and German GCSE's at twelve.

I think it's marvellous how kids can pick up languages so easily, given the chance, and can only be a good thing. My own children went to Welsh schools but, sadly, now only use the language for swearing.

I do think it's odd (not bad, just value-neutral odd) that your DH doesn't use his first language with your DS the same way that you use your first language, especially given that you and your DH use English between each other.

And I do know of someone Welsh-speaking (a friend's cousin) who was turned down from Cambridge partly because his English wasn't fluent enough (he got into the Sorbonne, though his French was better than his English so it's not as though it blighted his life).

However, it's fairly clear that under the circumstances you describe your DS will learn fluent English eventually, and also that your ILs are quite a long way up their own arses.

I think you are being quite cruel to your in-laws. How would you feel if your DS ended up, for example, with a dutch woman and only spoke dutch to his dcs? And he told you that you had to wait until they learnt English (which no doubt they would) until you could speak with them. Honestly, would you not feel a bit hurt and excluded. Or maybe you are so good at languages that it wouldn't bother you. But that is not the case for everyone. I can learn to read languages easily but I speak with such an appalling accent that I am very embarrassed to talk.

If your ds is going to learn english eventually then why not teach him some phrases now so his gps can take him out?

My inlaws are russian - they make an effort not to talk to each other in russian around me because it is rude to exclude someone in that way if it is avoidable.

gerontius - I'm rather surprised that you feel a perceived lack of English might hold this child back. Perhaps you're not aware that all the five major Welsh universities (Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter and Swansea - and perhaps the ex-polys too, I don't know) are officially bilingual. That the students may write essays and sit exams in the medium of Welsh? So how on earth does that compromise their education? Is a BSc from Cardiff invalid in your idea of "the real world"?

The world does not start and end with the English language nor the crossing of the Severn Bridge!

OP - I too am stunned by this anti-Welsh thing. Perhaps we ought to start a "stop speaking as though you grew up in the Thames estuary, you're from Berkshire dear" thread! "You'll never get a decent job if you drop your t's like that."

Let's be honest though Welsh and English are not languages of equal usefulness. English is a world language, spoken by billions, with billions more desparate to learn it. It can take you anywhere. Welsh is spoken by a tiny few. It can take you to cardiff.

It would be a big mistake to be in a position to easily teach your children excellent English but to deny them that skill. Imo

Actually it could take you straight in to a highly paid and respected job in Brussels for a start.

OP is not "denying" her child the right to learn English.

Most of these "recommendations" that keep popping up do not come from professional linguists- in fact, I have never met a professional linguist who is remotely interested in telling other people what language to speak.

They come from parents who write books describing how they have handled bilingualism and how it's worked for them. And occasionally from childcare professionals with no personal experience of bilingualism.

But from this literature, such as it is, a number of possible options emerge, that all seem to have worked for different families:

*OPOL (one parent, one language)- this seems to be the most common in families where parents have different languages

*minority language at home - leaving the child to acquire the majority language outside

*BPBP (both parents both languages)- this requires a fair amount of self discipline if the minority language is not to be left behind

Maybe you could do one day a week where it's English Day - and your DH can speak in his own native language and your ds might enjoy that!

Yep, I'm definitely one of the ones on this thread that "doesn't understand" and is terribly ignorant. Can't help it though, just think it's odd and feel sorry for PIL being sort of forced to learn another language at their age, when it will be much harder. And if they comment about that being ridiculous or wrong they are dismissed as "rude."!!!

havent read whole thread (sorry) but what strikes me about the whole thing is my DD is about the same age (younger though) and she mostly just speaks gibberish!

we have 4 laguages in our house (singalese, kurdish, arabic and english) and it has not yet happened that DD cant communicate iwth anyone. and i have to say, i hadnt really thought about which languge was going to be her 'first' one. if you see what i mean.

seriously, OP i have to say i think its more strange that your PILs think your small child should be speaking english in order to communicate with him.

how many of you all on this thread can understand other peoples 2yr olds at the best of times anyway? but we all manage!

The PIL's have described OP's mother tongue as pointless and dead, which is hardly the cultural teachings I would want the child to hear. They are being dismissive and rude about their DIL's and their grandson's heritage.

interesting thread.

my mother only spoke Welsh at home before starting school at 5 - and was bilingual pretty quickly. attitudes to Welsh back then were oretty negative - so her fluency is now not 100% and she never taught us.

am all for reviving Welsh as a language in Wales - and the OP's child will be fine as English is so omnipresent - it may be tricky with the in laws right now but that will change as he gets older - at age 2 no child can be fully bilingual any way?

skihorse - just on the Welsh universities comment. they may all be bilingual officially, but NONE of my lecturers at cardiff were Welsh speakers and at no point could any of my teaching have been done through the Welsh medium. To not have fluent English would have been a major problem (as all the Erasmus students from germany found out.....)

Frik, my two year old spoke better English than my 13 yo when she was two.

YABU, and very unfair on your PILs.

lol puppymonkey, i knew someone would be along to tell me something like that

Everyone agrees that English is important, and as the OP has stated, her son will speak English as well.

Yes, his English heritage is important - of course it is. And he will speak English. Just not for a year or so.

And you are using your son to make a political point.Have you considered how he will feel when he gets to school and can't speak English like the other kids?

So if he will speak English at some point and that's not a prob for anyone and everyone agrees that is what kids learning a language will do - why not just blinking speak English at home anyway???? Aswell as Welsh???? What poiunt are you trying to make!!??

But why is his English heritage important only in a year or so?

Why not now?

My PILS would be FUMING if I said 'nope, we live in France we will speak English and only English at home, only socialise with expats and they won't learn French at all'. I'd be fuming in the same situation....although the rate of linguistic expansion seems to dictate my DGC will have about 5 languages, assuming my trilingual DC marry other trilinguals and they have a language in common. I will jolly well expect any child of mine to make the effort to introduce their children to both English (my mother tongue) and French (DH's mother tongue), despite the fact we could speak each other's.

However I appreciate I may differ from the OP's PILs in that if my DGC don't seem to be speaking English I'll jolly well go ahead and communicate with them in English anyway and make extra-special efforts to teach them.