Amid all the literature that Mr T and I read on parenting and raising a bilingual baby, the strongest piece of advice was that each one of us had to stick to one language with our daughter, no matter what.
So, for example, I would speak only Arabic to her, read books in Arabic, sing songs in Arabic, do everything in Arabic, and he would do the same but in English. Then a third person – a nanny, let’s say, or a full-time caretaker that she saw regularly – could speak a third language to her and we would then be making the most out of a baby’s ability to absorb languages early on, and be left with a multilingual child.
In practice, we found the advice impossible to embrace. I think, imagine, create and breathe in English – there was no way anything was going to take away the pleasure of reading my favourite children’s books out to my Baby A. Add to that my years of teaching music to tiny tots in nursery schools and my knowledge of children’s nursery rhymes – in English – has no bounds. I failed miserably at my attempts to speak only Arabic to my child.
Mr T is fluent in English, Arabic and Turkish, and I kept trying to get him to speak Turkish to Baby A so we could expose her to the language. I would sometimes try to speak in French to her as well.
By sometimes, I mean about once a month, when it would occur to me to count to 10 in French while my daughter stared at me, confused.
Suffice to say, we never managed to do what friends have done – and done well. I have a friend who speaks to her daughter only in French, while the father speaks only in German. At school, the child is learning English and Arabic. The little girl should be in a United Colors of Benetton advert – she is so multilingual.
Mr T and I couldn’t make it work for us. If I had to stick to one language and he had to stick to another, which one would we speak as a family together? Would we have to repeat everything twice – once in English and once in Arabic? It made no sense to us and we discarded our lofty plans early on, depending on our families to speak in Arabic to our child.
I wanted to be able to communicate with Baby A and my most comfortable way of communication – what felt natural to me – was the English language.
Our efforts have paid off in that she spoke early on, and can make herself understood to us perfectly – in English. She is also able to understand Arabic perfectly well when we or others speak to her in the language. She continues, however, to express herself in English.
I’ve been criticised extensively by other parents – and of course, non-parents – for our choice to allow English to become Baby A’s mother tongue and first language. We’ve been practically accused of blasphemy, of ignoring the beauty of our culture and heritage, of parental negligence, of turning our back on our religion and our divine responsibility as parents to teach our child the language of the Holy Quran.
Sometimes I am struck by guilt. But sometimes, you just have to do what is most comfortable for you, what feels right, even what is easiest.
She will learn Arabic. She will learn it in school. But I will not feel guilty that my Canadian-born daughter is fluent in English – her first language.
Hala Khalaf is a freelance journalist in Abu Dhabi