My in laws asked me to not speak my native language

[Kate8889]

We were all sitting together and my mom said something to me in our native language that wasn't complimentary of my in laws (she didn't like that they called her grandma, she has repeatedly asked to not be called that).

The next day my in laws in strong terms asked that I not speak in my native tongue when around them. I am devastated. It is my identity and how I communicate with my mom. It's one of the few things that feel like they are truly mine right now

But do you and your mother speak Welsh to each other when in the company of non-Welsh speakers in order to say disparaging things about them without them knowing what you're saying? Because that's what OP and her mother were doing with her in-laws.

Exactly this. ^ Even so, it is rude to speak in your own language in front of people who cannot understand you, even if you are not slagging them off.

You can of course still teach your children the language , but it’s rude to speak another language in company when other people don’t understand.
Nothing to stop you speaking it to your mum when you’re alone.

It's not. Imagine you and your mother both English, were in your home in Germany, and your MIL (German monoglot) said to your DC 'Hat dir Oma das gegeben?' and your DM said to you that she objects to being referred to as Oma, then your MIL tells you to not speak English in their presence, who's really being rude?

If the language is Spanish, OP is really exaggerating the difficulty of teaching it to her kids. It's quite easy to find Spanish speaking childcare, healthcare, activities, friends, radio, television, jobs. It's easy to immerse yourself in Spanish here.

Of course it’s rude, how would you feel in a workplace with other people speaking a different language and you didn’t know what they were saying, who they were talking about and you weren’t involved in the discussion.

its rude, many people on this thread are saying it’s rude.

It's not rude.

But OP’s mum only spoke in her language because the in laws were being rude and calling her grandma.

How would you like to be called grandma by randoms?

They’re not randoms. They’re her son-in-law’s parents, not strangers on a bus.

No, of course not.

No, of course not.

And no, it's not rude, it's our language, in our country. And when travelling, I don't find it rude that native speakers speak in their own language in front of me. I would NEVER expect them to engage with each other in any other language.

It's not rude at all.

Of course it's not. They can speak directly to you in a language which you would understand, but it's totally unacceptable to expect others to drop their own language when chatting.

What we do is go to shops and cafes and wait for Brits to come in then we stop talking in English just so they don't understand.

We don't really but we laugh when we go to the UK and hear them talk about us as 'those Germans'.

But for the purposes of calling her grandma, they are randoms. They are her daughter’s parents in law, not her grandchildren. They are very rude for calling her grandma.

This is my daily experience at work (I speak the language but only to a certain extent and don't understand many things people are saying), doesn't bother me at all, people have a right to speak their native language, nor do people complain when I speak English with colleagues that speak English too, because we're grown ups who realise that we don't need to understand everything that everyone says around us and we especially don't have a right to know what people are saying to each other in their own personal conversations.

This is how it comes across I'm afraid.

It really doesn’t, if you actually read OP’s posts.

Yes it’s rude to speak in a language that others don’t understand in a group setting. It’s only 30 minutes a day. But definitely use your language when in-laws are not there young kids pick up languages easily.

For many people, like me, this is the norm at work. Our office doesn’t have a language that everyone speaks, should we remain silent all day and communicate via mime?

If she says something in your own language to you again, in front of others who don't speak it, it would be better to answer her in English, and just bat a difficult comment away. Just say something like: "We can talk about that later" and move on.
It doesn't mean you can't share your language with your kids, just not when your in laws are about.

This happens to me literally every day and I don't give a shit because I am not paranoid and I know it's the norm in most parts of the world that are not aggressively monolingual.

So what? That’s a different senario to what happened with your mum. It was incredibly rude to switch to your own language to bitch. But you bilingual child switching between languages is fine, just reply in English and say grandparent don’t understand, as a way to teach them to talk in English in company too

I'm getting increasingly confused by all the posts from people saying things like "well in my office people don't all speak the same language, I would never expect someone to speak in a language I can understand when they're talking to someone else". Firstly, is it not obvious that this isn't an office, it's a social interaction between a small group of people and is an inherently different situation? Secondly, how would you feel in your office if you were interacting with two other people in a language that you could all understand, and they then switched into their native language which you couldn't understand in order to obviously criticise you while you were still there? I'm not buying that everyone is so cool and laid-back that they wouldn't be offended by that if it actually happened to them.

You and your mother have been rude by deliberately using your language to talk behind their back in front of them. Your in-laws have picked up on that and asked that you refrain from speaking your language while they're around.

Rather than own your rudeness and acknowledge that it's fair enough to ask that you use the language you all share when you're together, particularly given what you were using your native language to do, you have chosen to reframe this to others as your in-laws banning you from speaking your native language to your children ever, as though they are abusive colonisers trying to stamp out your heritage in the next generation.

Sorry, OP - you may be feeling a bit deflated but it seems to me that you're straw-manning their request like a teenager in an attempt to make yourself seem like the victim, whether you're aware of it or not ("Oh, OK, I guess I just won't teach my children to speak my language at all, ever, then.")

It's coming across as a bit of a faux hang-dog cry-bullying to be honest. Just talk to your children in your native language all the time your parents in law aren't there, which is more than they are there. Surely you'd started that way before now anyway if it's important to you?