How important is bilinguialism?

[Beardo]

I speak English as my primary language, and Bangla as a secondary. How important is it to teach your children the language of your homeland? I don't foresee myself teaching my children Bangla. English for sure. I'd rather teach them Arabic instead of Bangla.

Is that wrong? What languages will you teach or have you taught your children?

[ummibby]

True bilingualism is picked up rather than taught. If Bangla is part of your everyday life and they learn it that way then great!

I agree with you that if you are going to teach a language it is more beneficial to teach a child Arabic than any other language because of the Islamic implications. If your children know Arabic it will be so much easier for them to learn to recite the Quran inshaAllah.

[*charisma*]

Assalamu Alaikum

If I could learn all languages, believe me, I would! Langauge is the way of communication so from an Islamic perspective, it is important I think to learn many different ones if you were to communicate with your own people or others to give dawah. If it weren't for Muslims learning another language, they wouldn't have been able to produce good quality islamic books and qurans for dawah.

fi aman Allah
w'salaam

[gladTidings]

I think its very important to learn different languages in order to access knowledge and understanding from different sources. I find many of my English colleagues have poor communication with anyone who does not speak English as a first language...consequently they have little understanding and awareness of different cultures and ideas. This is quite sad since they cannot enjoy the beautiful colours that God has created in the form of culture.

I wish I was skilled in the language department =/. I would love to explore other cultures and ways and experience it in their language. I am fluent in English and speak Punjabi fairly well...and Urdu to a lesser extent. However, I make effort to read Urdu and feel it has given me access to Arabic and help my understanding of it. Of course, nothing beats the eloquence of fus'ha Arabic.

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[Insaanah]

:sl:

I speak English as my primary language, and Bangla as a secondary. How important is it to teach your children the language of your homeland? I don't foresee myself teaching my children Bangla. English for sure. I'd rather teach them Arabic instead of Bangla.

Is that wrong?

Interesting. I see it differently.

Although you speak Bangla as a secondary, it is a part of your heritage. The way I see it, your children have a right to be taught it (along with Arabic). I don't think it has to be a case of I'll teach them x instead of y language, because young kids pick up languages easily, and that's the best time to learn. They can easily learn them simultaneously. Later on as adults, if they decide they don't want to speak Bangla, the choice is theirs, but by not teaching it, you're taking away that choice from them, and depriving them of a part of their heritage and an important link to their cultural identity. Maybe at some point in their life someone might speak try to Bangla with them, and when they can't, the other person might say, but aren't you Bengali in origin? And they'll say yes, but our parents never taught us it. Imagine how they would feel and how you would feel if you heard them having to say that.

Or, if later in life, their career takes them to Bangladesh, and they find they are having to make a monumental effort to learn in books, when they could easily have been taught it as youngsters. I know someone know whose Indian mother always spoke English rather than Hindi with him. Now, as part of his job, he has to go to India, and he has had to expend a lot of time and effort learning from books. Yet it will take no effort on your part to teach it to them. You just have to speak it in front of them, and with them, and they'll pick it up. Even if you don't speak it fluently, they can at least pick up all that you know, and that will get them by.

On another note, bilingual children have been found to grow up finding things easier to learn or having higher IQs (can't remember exactly), something along those lines.

But my plea is that it's your childrens right, don't deprive them of it. Please. One day they may take you to task for it.

:sl:

[Woodrow]

One of the best gifts a parent can pass on to his children is the language of his heritage. This is not out of pride, it is to preserve his ancestry and to gain an understanding of how his ancestors thought. also the last step of genocide is to destroy a peoples language.

[Alpha Dude]

I don't foresee myself teaching my children Bangla.

Do you even know it yourself? :hmm:

You can't teach what you don't know..

[CosmicPathos]

your kids might grow up hating you if you did not teach them bangla and for some reason they rediscovered it in university and fell in love with the language, they'd hate you for keeping them away from their roots.

what if your child grows up to be anti-English and Bangladesh nationalist, that will stand in opposition to all that you hold dear i.e. English language. Take a balanced approach.

But yea, as mentioned above, i doubt you know bangla :p

[Haya emaan]

we cant deny the importance of the language of our home land. no doubt its our identity... many times its the first thing asked after knowing the identity for example " oh u r Pakistani/Bengali..so u speak Urdu/bangla" how can u say NO... it feels shameful..

rest of course Arabic has its own importance for us.. and its better to learn and teach it to our children as much as we can for the better understanding and to have direct relationship with the teachings of Islam....

more over English is the major communicating language today necessary to learn specially for the dawah purpose..

learning many languages is really always very beneficial and i think is a thing u can be proud of.. i can speak my mother tongue, my homeland language and english and want to learn arabic INSHALLAH will soon do that..

[AslamP]

English has become a universal language; it's good if you know three languages, teach them to your children, of course, Arabic is a must.

[Banu_Hashim]

I see it now as very important. I did not realise the importance of it and I wish that I took my mother language more seriously and learnt it better as a child. I am what you could call the result of 'receptive bilingualism'. But I will inshaAllaah learn my mother tongue properly, how to speak it, read it, write it and I will definitely teach it to my children inshaAllaah.

We should never forget our roots. I agree completely with Uncle Woodrow, it gives us an insight into how our ancestors thought and the final step of genocide is the eradication of a people's language. So true.

Meri maadari zubaan hai Urdu, lekin bachpan se mein sirf angrezi men baat kartey they... to is wajah se, meri urdu kaafi mehdood ban gya hai...:omg: I regret it now... But thankfully I have parents who know the language. I don't want to be a parent myself who can't give that opportunity to my children if they so wish to have it.

[Woodrow]

Just my opinion, every Muslim should have at least a basic conversational understanding of 3 languages. Arabic, English and their Ancestral language. If either Arabic or English is the Ancestral language then I suggest any of these combinations. Arabic, English, Urdu---Arabic, English, Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese---Arabic, English, Japanese---Arabic, English, French---Arabic, English, German---Arabic, English, Malay---

[ayesha.ansari]

Well dear i also love to learn many languages but don't have courage + time for that all. or my attitude toward learning any thing is quite slow. Learning many languages will help you throughout moving to any other country.

[AishaRayann]

Well I speak 4 languages: English (my born language), French (so-so) takes me a while to think about it but i know it, Arabic (a little), Russian (some.) I think its very important to be at least bilingual ..if not trilingual...its important to know ones heritage..don't take that away from them by not teaching them. It's a part of who they are. As far Arabic it is essential to know for the Deen. But, you don't have to teach them right away..I find Arabic for the most part an easy language to learn. But, that's me. It's the languages like Pashtu that throw me for a loop. I can do Arabic, European,and Soviet languages quite well..never tried any Asian languages. But, I assume they are very hard to learn. Don't know for sure though.I love linguistics.

[-Elle-]

I speak English as my primary language, and Bangla as a secondary. How important is it to teach your children the language of your homeland? I don't foresee myself teaching my children Bangla. English for sure. I'd rather teach them Arabic instead of Bangla.

Is that wrong? What languages will you teach or have you taught your children?

:sl:

I speak Arabic, and the only reason I will teach my kids Arabic (inshAllah) is because it is the language of Islam and of the Qur'an. It is extremely important to know Arabic, especially fus7a, because you can then read the Qur'an on your own and actually understand what you're reading. You might know that each Arabic country has its own dialect, more or less, like Palestine, Iraq Syria and Lebanon are all pretty close (Egypt too, actually). That dialect I speak and understand perfectly, but when it comes to fus7a, I don't always understand everything. So yeah, definitely Arabic. If I didn't speak Arabic and spoke another language, I'd probably teach them the language as well, it's another skill, and they can communicate better with extended family who might not speak English or french, but it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

I'd like to teach my kids french, but I doubt that will happen, unless they're raised here. Better to put emphasis on learning Arabic perfectly.

[-Elle-]

*sorry,double post*

[maryambintjared]

I have exposed my son to several languages, and he now speaks English (obviously) Irish (our original language) some French, German and Russian. If I were to have another child I'd also do my best to teach them Arabic. My son is fifteen, and obviously a fairly experienced linguist, so I'm sure if he ever does become a Muslim he'll have no trouble learning Arabic. I think teaching him multiple languages expanded his mind and outlook, and ideally I think everybody should have at least two languages.