Multilingual households?

[S A DeVault]

So, as you can see from my few posts so far, I come from a "diverse" background. (I'm just one of those half Punjabi/half Bavarian Anabaptist curious guys that everyone knows /s). Ever since my wife and I met, we wanted to give our children, if God blesses us with them, the chance to grow up speaking two languages. I personally grew up at first speaking Bavarian with my mother and her family, and Urdu (Pakistan's version of Hindi) with my father and his family. Apparently there was a time when I couldn't speak English but I don't remember it. My wife's maternal grandparents were children of German immigrants, from near Magdeburg, and while they would speak German with each other, they did not pass it on. My wife and I are currently trying to make German our "household language". It's been a bit of a struggle. Both my mother and I never learned Hochdeutsch, and as I'm sure a lot of you know, Bavarian can be quite different. Long story short is, My wife and I are hoping to be a bilingual German/English household. I know that most Mennonites are no longer German speaking, but I was wondering if there were any other German speakers on here, or if you are also in a multilingual household, what languages do you speak?

[steve-in-kville]

Welcome to the forum!

We only speak English in our home but I know of a handful here on MN that are multilingual. I am able to follow a conversation in Pennsylvania Dutch, however.

[mike]

I can speak in rudimentary Pennsylvania Dutch. English is something I take a stab at once in a while.

[Neto]

I grew up in a PlautDietsch (AKA Mennonite Low German) home, but my parents used it as their "secret language", so none of us learned it. My wife grew up in an Amish home until she was 12, when her parents went to the Beachy Amish Mennonite church. Of course they continued speaking PA German, and she tried to teach me, but then we went to Brazil, and started in Portuguese language school. So the PA German learning stopped pretty much. I understand some, and can speak some - "enough to get into trouble", as they say. Our daughter is married to a guy who also grew up in the BAM group, and so he speaks it as well. Our children understand Portuguese to some extent, our daughter more than the others. Then after the first year in Brazil we were allocated to a remote tribal people in the Amazon, called (by outsiders) the Banawa. So those are the three languages I speak. (If I can count English, which I speak with a bit of an Okie accent. I've lost enough of it that I notice the accent in my family who still live in that area of the States, but there are some words that I still just cannot say the way they say them here in Ohio. One difference is that we generally put the accent on the next to last syllable, so that alone creates different pronunciations.)

[Sliceitup]

We primarily speak English. My spouse and I both speak Pennsylvania Dutch, and our oldest children can understand most of it. The youngest children do not understand or speak it, and I really regret that, if for no reason other than it would eliminate the barrier to friendships with their cousins.

[ohio jones]

We do have a few members from Germany and Switzerland, as well as Americans who have lived in Germany. I visit occasionally, and my German is good enough to find my way around, but not too much beyond that. On one of my next trips I'll have to visit the city of Ausfahrt since I keep seeing road signs for it.

[HondurasKeiser]

I speak in English and Spanish to our children, my wife speaks in French and English to them and everyone else around them speaks Spanish.

[steve-in-kville]

My wife's sister married a man from India, and they are exposing their children to both languages. My wife also has a brother that married a girl from Guatemala and their children speak both Spanish and English. To that end, she has a sister that married a man from Georgia and their children speak both English and redneck.

True story.

[Ken]

My wife is from Chile and all our family on her side live in Chile so we are a multi-lingual household speaking Spanish and English.

It is hard raising your kids that way though as we didn't really use all that much Spanish when they were growing up although we did try. Our girls have all studied Spanish in school and have all taken frequent extended trips down to Chile to spend time with their grandparents and other family which has also helped keep their Spanish up. Since they are all dual citizens they also have the right to work and study in any Mercosur country (South American equivalent of the EU) which they plan to take advantage of. Now that the pandemic is mostly over the middle child is planning a year of living and studying in Chile.

[Karstan78]

We speak Denglish. Some words come out easier in one language as we’re speaking the other.