Story 2: Igbo, Nigerian Pidgin English, English and Yoruba in Nigeria in the 1980s and 1990s

Grace (not her real name) grew up in the eastern part of Nigeria in a village with her grandparents, while her parents were working in Lagos. Igbo was the only language she spoke until she went to school and encountered Nigerian Pidgin English.

At that age, when I was young, Igbo was the only language I knew – that was my language. Although English was the official language of Nigeria, there was no opportunity to speak that. […] The funny thing was that they weren’t speaking English in the primary school. In Nigeria we have this broken language, we call it Pidgin English, so I had to learn that language and that was a kind of disadvantage for me. Usually I was supposed to have learned English, but because of the environment that I was living in, I had to learn that broken language.

At the age of 12 she went to school in Lagos, and she was at a disadvantage as she spoke Nigerian Pidgin English but not English. At that time, Grace and her mother spoke several languages together. Her mother was keen that she learn to speak English, not Nigerian Pidgin English, which she refers to as “Broken”.

At the time when I finished my primary school my mum discovered that OK, she needs to go to a better school. Otherwise it’s going to be tough. So she sent me to a military school, it was Command Secondary School, Lagos. The first time I went there it was pretty difficult for me, because I didn’t know how to speak English. It was a problem for me. I was really at a disadvantage I would say. People around me were speaking English.
My mother would speak Broken, sometimes English, sometimes Igbo. […] Some parents would not mind if their children spoke Pidgin or spoke correct English. It doesn’t matter for them. But this was very important for me, because as you grow up you tend to want to fit into your environment properly. Everyone around me was speaking English, so I wanted to speak that language.

In Lagos, Grace came to speak Yoruba too:

I didn’t study Yoruba, but in the environment in which I lived in Lagos, people around me spoke Yoruba and Pidgin English, so I had to also learn that one. If I didn’t learn Yoruba it would be a problem for me because they would use this to abuse me. It was very important that I knew how to speak the language at the age of 12.

Igbo was no longer a priority for her in Lagos:

I had to limit my speaking Igbo because I needed to learn this English at all costs, because my classmates didn’t understand me. It was a problem for me. I was really shy at first because I didn’t understand what people were saying around me. We were from different parts of Nigeria. Some spoke Hausa, some spoke Yoruba, some spoke Igbo and some spoke Idoma and the other languages.

The need to fit in linguistically has stayed with Grace:

At a particular point in time, I had to move to a particular part of Nigeria, Delta State, and the kind of Igbo that is spoken in that environment was different from my own Igbo. So I picked from that language too. I was 21, so that also affected me in a different way because when I speak Igbo I don’t speak the way I spoke when I was a young girl.

Her advice for parents of young children who are in a situation where there are several languages around:

I think my advice for all parents should be that every parent should endeavour to teach their children their first language. It is very important that they are able to speak their language. Because this is a huge problem when a child cannot speak his own language when he meets the people of his language he is not able to do anything. English is important, it is a global language, but it is not enough. You have to try and teach your child the native language. It is very important.

Her feelings about English are mixed:

It would have been interesting if I had grown up with English. I think that would have helped me a lot. I would have been able to speak better than I do.

Nonetheless, Grace is critical of parents in Nigeria who choose to bring up their children as English speakers:

There are parents in Nigeria who do not speak their language to their children. When you speak to them you end up making a fool of yourself because they don’t understand. […] If I have children in the future I am going to start by speaking my language, Igbo, with them. That is very important. They need to be able to interact with people. They need to mix with people of their own culture. They never can tell when they will meet people of their culture. They need to know that this is their origin. They need to incorporate themselves into society, even if they don’t live in Nigeria. Wherever they live they need to be able to speak my language and embrace that culture. They are not English.

Story 3: Latvian and Russian in Latvia in the 1950s

Larisa grew up in Riga, speaking Russian with her Russian father and bilingual Latvian-Russian mother.

As a little child I was totally unaware, because my babysitter was Latvian, my grandfather was Latvian and I spent all summers with him and with Latvian relatives, and the nursery school was in Latvian. But because of their ambitions, my parents thought that, well, a provincial education, it is better to send a single child to a Russian school because that will give access to, well, maybe better universities.
At the beginning of my life there was more Latvian than Russian because of the nursery school, and babysitters and the summers. That was post-war Latvia, in Riga. My father was Russian, and my maternal grandmother was also Russian, so mum was half Latvian. My father was totally Russian and he never learned Latvian properly. He was a scientist and felt it was better to spend the time with English. Mum was totally bilingual and her Latvian grandfather, he had very poor knowledge of Russian. She spoke both languages but she preferred Russian. The dominance was Russian. She spoke Latvian when we had Latvian relatives around. The circle of relatives and playmates were Latvian, at nursery school and we were in Latvia.

When she started school, she was faced with having Russian all around her:

I didn’t realise that I most probably spoke with an accent when I started first class, and children commented. […] I became aware I was a bilingual child, but before school it was totally normal. I never wondered which language to use. When you have a Latvian cousin you talk Latvian, when you have a Russian guest you talk Russian. It never occurred to me.

When she went to university at the age of 21, it was in Moscow, and her accent still caused her problems:

My Russian professor, head of the department of general linguistics found my Russian sounded a bit Jewish. He hated it. Now I wonder if it was because I went to the Russian school that was full of Jewish kids. We grew up for 11 years together. I mixed with those people. They all came from middle-class families and they were my classmates. I had very little contact with real Russians. And he found this provincial, Jewish flavour in my speech. He didn’t like it – he commented on it and he wanted me to get rid of it. I was totally unaware of it.

Now an academic linguist and professional translator, Larisa feels that her upbringing has been a resource:

I find it natural to know several languages. My father who was a Russian found it difficult to have several languages, difficult to think. I was used to thinking in two languages, when I was a child, but now I don’t. I don’t think in Latvian.

But in a situation such as that of post-Soviet Latvia, language and identity are closely related:

When I came back from Moscow, as a dynamic person working for the University of Latvia, that was a time for national re-reckoning.  Quite a number of my friends who were intellectual dissidents were involved in this movement. They were Latvian nationalists. And they questioned my political identity in this situation, the Latvian intellectuals. Then I suffered that I was not sent to the Latvian school to become a 100% Latvian intellectual. That was an inspiring time. I couldn’t belong – because I became too Russianised because of my life in Moscow and belonging also to a group of Russian intellectuals who were quite amazing people. I had problems of a split personality as a linguist. That was a time when I really felt sorry about the choice of my parents. I didn’t feel Latvian in a situation where I would love to be. When you are mixed you are divided in a way, in particularly when it is politically an acute moment. You really don’t know which side you belong to because you have both sides in you.

After a long period outside Latvia, in Russia and in Sweden she had to pass an exam to qualify for Latvian citizenship:

Latvia became independent and I lost my Latvian citizenship because I wasn’t of pure Latvian heritage. It was a tough time for mixed people. I had to restore my Latvian citizenship by going through a state language exam. And the examiners were surprised at my accent; they said my accent was like a Latvia migrant. I had been living for ten years in Sweden at that time, or less, maybe six. So they reacted. They thought I sounded native. We have many second-generation immigrants to Canada, Sweden, and I sounded more like them, and they thought maybe I had a Latvian background from a family of immigrants but I didn’t sound like a Latvian who grew up in Soviet Latvia. Maybe it has to do with interference from Swedish. […] They really couldn’t identify me from my language. There was Latvian, there was something that was not exactly Latvian.

Story 4: Scots and English in Scotland in the sixties

David grew up in Edinburgh with English and Scots. His interest in language and politics later took him to Catalonia and then to Galicia, where he now lives. Listen here to his own experiences of life with English and Scots. On the Parents page you will find his story of raising children with English, Spanish and Galician.

Listen to David's experiences

David grew up in Scotland, speaking Scots and English. He soon became aware that the choice of Scots or English was sensitive:

I became aware of Scots at a very young age, thanks to a school teacher at my school in Edinburgh who was very keen on the Scots language. […] I was very interested because my grandparents used many parts of Scots, and I remember some words I used at home and at school I was told not to use them, that they were Scots, they weren’t proper English. So when I discovered Burns, at the age of about ten, I became very interested in the Scots language in the way that only a ten-year-old can. […] So the Scots language was something very romantic to me. It was associated with Burns, and it was also associated with naughtiness. If I use Scots words at school I’ll get told off. I was told off for speaking Scots at home too. I remember being told by a member of my family, “dinnae say dinnae. It’s no proper English”.

He sees parallels in this with his wife’s background with Castilian Spanish and Galician in La Coruña in Galicia in north-western Spain, where he now lives with his family.

Her parents were native Galician speakers. They spoke Galician to each other and to their daughter all the time. But my wife was encouraged by her parents and by the social milieu to speak Castilian Spanish. That was a way of getting away from the village, away from the peasant stock that was her lot. She was given a scholarship to a convent school which was a part of social movement. So she was encouraged by her parents to speak back to them in Castilian Spanish. My wife understands Galician perfectly; she would be able to speak it if she tried. She doesn’t try although she agrees politically with the importance of the Galician language.

Before going to Galicia, David was offered a job teaching English in Catalonia:

Now if it had been anywhere else I wouldn’t have been interested, but I was involved politically quite heavily as a student, as most of us were. Catalonia rang a lot of bells and pressed a lot of buttons as it were. I had been following the post-Franco era with the wildcat strikes in the socialist press of the UK, so I was interested in Catalonia. I was also interested in the linguistic aspect of Catalonia. I knew they had their own language and I knew this was trying to be reclaimed after it had been oppressed by Francoism. This was also a time when as part of my political development I was becoming aware that as a Scot living in England at the time I was also denied access to language or languages that could have been what I thought was my political birth right.

He also chose to go to Galicia for political reasons

I’d heard of the Basque Country, and followed the struggles in the Basque Country, I’d heard of the linguistic situation in Catalonia, but Galicia was totally new to me. So I decided to hitchhike over to Galicia, not being quite sure how far it was from Catalonia. I thought if I ever get a chance of a job there, I’ll take it. Well I got a chance of a job there and I met the woman who was to become my wife, and that’s how I got to Galicia.

When he was 14, David moved with his family to Newark in England. This meant that he had to adapt to a new set of linguistic norms and realise that the English he spoke was not widely understood:

I remember the first class I went to was geography. I could not understand a word the guy said, not a word. He was speaking ordinary English. The kids obviously took the piss out of me rotten for my accent. I had a broad Edinburgh accent, much stronger than my accent is now. I believe I still have something of a Scottish accent, then I had a very strong working-class Edinburgh accent,  Even if I wasn’t using Scots words and phrases like dinnae and ken, and that, which I wasn’t , I was trying as best I could to speak as standard English as possible, but I was using words like scunner and that, but just the breadth of my accent made my speech inaccessible to most of the people around me and their accents were inaccessible to me. This is something that when you are 14 marks you, but also it changes in no time, and in a couple of weeks you’re trying to copy their accent. I always had this wee bit of resentment I must admit.

So now, in Galicia, David has encouraged his children to speak Galician even though his wife’s use of the language is receptive only:

It’s common in fact in Galicia, it’s like a lost generation. There should be some studies made of it because my wife’s case is not unique.  […]Of course the prestige of the Galician language within certain circles has changed. Galician is losing speakers in its heartland, the country areas where it’s still seen as unprestigious and Castilian which is encouraged by the press, by the television by translations of video games and this kind of thing. In the cities, people who are going to universities and studying are seeing Galician for the first time as being a prestigious language. It’s almost like a badge saying that you are left-wing or that you are progressive or socially aware. It’s saying that you are not a fascist. Speaking Galician is very much a statement of who I am among young Galician people.

Story 5: Italian and English in England in the 1950s and 1960s

Loretta grew up in London with an Italian-speaking mother. She later moved to Sweden and raised her own children speaking English and Swedish (listen to her story in Parents).

Listen to Loretta's experiences

Loretta grew up in London with an Italian mother and an English Jewish father and an older sister and brother. Her mother spoke both “bad English” as Loretta says and Italian with her when she was young. 

What I can remember of my early childhood is that my mother couldn’t speak English properly, but of course she could speak Italian. So I was probably brought up with a mix of Italian and bad English from my mother’s side, but it didn’t seem to affect my learning of the English language. I spoke in my early years better Italian than English from home, but I started school when I was four so therefore my English developed as anybody else’s English developed.

Her sister spoke better Italian than she did, although with a stronger English accent as her mother, being homesick, wanted to spend time in Italy. This went on through Loretta’s childhood.

We spent whole summers in Italy. But I can remember very clearly when I was much younger, about six or seven, I couldn’t really communicate in Italian with my Italian relations. I don’t know why, maybe I was just used to my mother’s Italian-English Italian. I remember playing in the garden with my cousins and their friends. We were all reasonably the same age and somebody began darting all these questions at me. What should I do? […] Sometimes I said yes and they looked at me very surprised. I probably didn’t get one answer right, but I thought, better that than to say I didn’t understand the question.

Later Loretta’s Italian improved, as the result of more summers in Italy and continuing to speak Italian with her mother. She remembers when she began to feel proficient in Italian:

I was around 12 or 13 years old. We went to Italy for three months. I was playing in the village with my cousins and I was one of the gang. I understood them and they understood me, and at some point they said, “Loretta you really speak good Italian”. Then I realised that not only did I speak good Italian, but my sister who speaks very, very good Italian retains to this day an English accent, and my Italian was more Italian. That’s probably in my eardrums somewhere that I have a better ear, or that I spent more time with my mother at an earlier age, I don’t know. But I always spoke better Italian than my brother and sister.

Loretta’s mother and her language was a source of great pride and great embarrassment to her as she grew up:

My mother always encouraged the Italian language within the family, and the Italian culture. I was ashamed of it as a teenager. Of the Italian, of the loudness, of the passionate nature. If I invited a boyfriend home it would always have to be on a Friday evening because Friday evening was family evening and everybody had to meet this boyfriend, and then he would come out of the dinner shell-shocked. Most of them thought it was fantastic – oh what a wonderful family. So the shame turned into well maybe this is quite fun to be half Italian then. Then I became more interested in the language and proud of knowing the language instead of well I can speak it but don’t spread the word. […] Also my mother, when she walked into a room everyone knew. So even the behaviour wasn’t typically English. On parents’ days, mums and dads would come in normally dressed. My mum would come in as the most elegant one – back straight, walking in with what would be perceived as her slightly arrogant look, which it wasn’t, it was just the way it was.

Of course this family history has influenced Loretta’s choices when bringing up her own children with her Swedish husband in Sweden:

[I raised them] in English. You have to choose a language. I tried to be as consistent as possible. I have never spoken Swedish with my husband. Many people are surprised at that. Some of my friends in this situation woke up one morning and said right, we’re going to speak Swedish from now on. I didn’t see the point because my husband spoke absolutely perfect English. We didn’t have a problem communicating in English. When he communicates with the children it’s in Swedish. When we are sitting as a family it is bilingual. I will speak English, and never move from English, except for Swedish words that that come in, one word here and one word there, but I just keep to English all the time. I am comfortable with it and all my kids are as well. They can move from Swedish to English without a problem. It’s everyday fare for us. Now they are getting boyfriends and girlfriends, so last weekend my son came home with his girlfriend and we were sitting at the table and it was bilingual still even though she was sitting there. English is a language that she’ll understand well, so we didn’t feel we were alienating her in any way. Eventually, I was speaking to her in English too and she was answering me in English so it was all very familiar for everyone. That’s one of the advantages with a language like English. In England, Italian was something they’d never understand in a million years.

Loretta’s children are now, as adults, very fluent in English, and interested in learning Italian. Her only regret is that her mother wasn’t more consistent in speaking Italian with her. She advises parents of young children not to succumb to pressure to drop the minority language:

You have to encourage a multilingual world, and the place to start is in your family if you have two or three languages in the family. You will have people who are a bit annoyed because you have a language they don’t understand. I would talk to my children in English and some people would come up to me and say “why are you talking English to your children?” I said “because I’m English” and they said “but you’re in Sweden now”. And English is a language most people would understand. If someone spoke a language that wasn’t well known here people will react and the children will feel different. But you have to fight against it because eventually the children are going to love you for giving them a language. But it’s tough and they’re going to hate you for it sometimes and they’re going to be embarrassed and refuse to answer you in your language. They’re going to do all these horrible things, but you just have to keep going. When the day comes that they realise all the positive things that you can get from knowing another language they will love you for it and thank you. […] I know for a fact that my sons were embarrassed to speak English when they grew up. Which is why I’m saying that you just have to be stubborn and tenacious. My daughter embraced it; she loved the idea of being different. But when I spoke English to my sons they did refuse for the first teenage years to speak English to me. They weren’t happy with this dual nationality. Now they think it’s wonderful. They are so proud of the fact that they’re not just Swedish. Adolescence, together with “I’m different” – it’s tough!

Story 6: Farsi, Czech and English in Scotland in the 1980s

Adam (not his real name) grew up with his brother in Scotland with a Czech dad and an Iranian mum. He didn’t know much English when he started school, but became fluent in all three languages. Later he spent periods in France and Germany and became fluent in these languages too. I met him while he was travelling in Sweden.

Listen to Adam's experiences

Adam grew up with three languages in constant use, Czech, Farzi and English, which was the majority language in Scotland where he lived with his Czech dad, Iranian mum and his brother. Adam’s father was determined that his sons should learn his language:

I think it was my father who was the driving force. He insisted that each parent speak their native language to us. I think mum was a bit less draconian. Dad was quite strict on it. They insisted that communication would be in the language of the parent. If we said something in English, Dad would say the correct thing in Czech and insist that we repeat it. […] We could get away with more English with Mum. Each of them talked to us in their language, Farsi and Czech, and I think that initially, when I went to school for the first time, my English wasn’t that good. My first two languages were Czech and Farsi.

Living in Scotland, as soon as he started school his English developed rapidly

Once I’d got to the age of five or six, English became at least my first language. I don’t know about my brother. School and friends were all in English. Even though my English wasn’t good when I started school, I didn’t really experience it as a handicap. When you are a kid you pick these things up really well.

He found his father’s determination trying at times when he was young:

There were times when I didn’t like it – I got annoyed. At times he would do Czech dictation or he was teaching me to tell the time in Czech. I remember one episode quite vividly. He was taking a bit of time to teach me and my friends were outside playing football. He would insist on me and my brother repeating things [in Czech] if we said it in English. Now looking back on it, yes it might have been annoying at times, but I am now very grateful for the skill of having Czech. It has proved immensely useful at times. If I didn’t have it there would be a whole tradition or culture that I would be separated from. I have quite a few friends in Czech; we have a house there. I can’t imagine not having that now and it is important to me.

His mother was more easy-going, which meant that he did not always speak Farsi with her:

Between the ages of 12 and my teenage years my Farsi was initially quite good and then I got quite lazy and didn’t make the effort and we’d speak to my mum in English more than half the time. But after I finished school, actually I spent part of my gap year in Iran, when I came back I made a conscious effort to speak more Farsi with my mum, so now it’s up to about 80%. My Farsi is domestic. I'm fluent in things around the house.

The family moved to France for a while, and Adam spent two years in a French school between the ages of 15 and 17:

My parents insisted, and I would agree with them, that I go to a French school and just start off where I left off in Scotland. So I went to a local French lycée and yes, at first that was pretty daunting, and quite hard. I struggled for the first term, I’d say, but it came really quickly. By the end of the second year I did my bac and I passed.

Adam is also fluent in German, the result of a school year spent on his own in Germany:

That was in second year, at the age of 13. I went to Germany to learn German for a year. I stayed with a local family we found. […] I had no German whatsoever. I was pretty much a beginner. I came back [to Scotland] in third year and picked up where I left off.

The only problem this remarkable young man has with his language situation is that he tries to avoid calling attention to his skills:

I think sometimes I felt more embarrassed in my ability. I could do all this and others couldn’t. I felt that by being able to do that I was showing off.  So I tried not to bring attention to it too much. I’d be quite quiet about it, probably still am. I don’t say “hey, look at me I can speak however many languages”. Sometimes I am embarrassed to admit OK I speak all these languages, but more from an embarrassment that that it makes me possibly look big-headed.

His advice to parents in the position his own parents were in is clear:

I’d say definitely go for teaching your kids your own languages. I think it’s one of the best things my parents did for me, after having me I suppose. Some people say, oh they’ll pick up the languages later, or they won’t integrate into their local surroundings, whatever language that is, the culture. But at that age, when kids start mixing with other kids it’s not an issue, they pick up things so quickly. Little kids are sponges. The more you can teach them at an early age, the better. You gain so much from it: culture, tradition, this ability to talk with that many more people and exchange ideas.

Adam believes that language is the foundation of thought, which, he argues, makes it a good thing to know many languages:

I suppose there is a school of thought that says you are limited in your thought by your language so you can only think as far as you can describe what you are thinking. So if you have more languages there are more holes that are plugged. There are more specific terms for ideas or concepts or whatever. I think that can only be good. I know there are certain terms that I think of like the word for me is the word in Farsi or in Czech because it fits just right. That’s the word for that thing. The English equivalent is just not adequate.

Like others whose experiences are described here, Adam is aware that the decision to raise your children with more than one language can be controversial in some settings, but that it is worth persevering:

I would say just go for it, no matter what other people around you say, stick with the languages.

Story 7: Swedish and Danish in Sweden in the 1950s

Pia (not her real name) was born in Stockholm to Danish parents.

They have always spoken Danish together and to us, myself and my brother. I must have spoken Danish until I started playing with other children. I asked my mother, she’s 91, when I started speaking Swedish. She said around three, when I started being outside.
I still speak Danish to my mother and I have quite a few cousins. I go there every summer and of course Danish is our language. My Swedish is better, I would say. My oral proficiency in Danish, if I have been to Denmark for a week or two, I feel it is coming back. But with my mother I realise we use some Swedish words as well, when there is a better Swedish word.

Pia was aware that she had two languages when she started school:

I read books in Danish and in Swedish. No problem reading but when we had dictation in school there were some mix-ups. My spelling was not that good at the beginning – I had to think. Also I know that my written proficiency is not as good in Danish. I write letters and things, but I know I make spelling mistakes.

Danish and Swedish are closely related to each other. Pia sees this as both an advantage and a disadvantage:

I think that’s why I mixed some, especially with the spelling. Also you know you can make yourself understood, even if you speak the other language. People can say to my mother, it’s very easy to understand when you speak Danish, but actually she believes she is speaking Swedish. That’s a bit sad. I feel now that she is getting older she doesn’t really realise. Also because my husband is there so there’s a mixture of languages all the time. I turn to my mother and speak Danish; to my husband I speak Swedish. We all seem to understand each other. I think it is more difficult when the languages are so close. You don’t have to learn.

Pia believes that her parents made a good choice in consistently speaking Danish to their children:

They were very consistent. They had good friends who came to Sweden at the same time and started working together, but they had the idea that they should try to speak Swedish to their children. That was a terrible mixture of languages. They didn’t speak Swedish and they didn’t speak Danish. I still think that their language is not Swedish and not Danish. I think my parents made a good choice.

She spoke Danish with her brother until he moved to Florida at the age of 25.

Then he started speaking English of course. Now he has moved back to Sweden, and we speak Swedish together. He manages to speak Danish to my mother but for us it seems more natural now to speak Swedish.

Pia spoke only Swedish with her own children, but they had a lot of contact with her mother when they were growing up.

They all understand Danish. My eldest daughter did an exchange term in Copenhagen where she actually found she understood everything. My relatives who met her said she also spoke Danish. My middle son always tries to speak Danish to my mother now that he is grown up. My youngest son understands and says a few sentences just for fun, but I think he keeps to Swedish. But they all love to go to Denmark, so every summer they want to come along with us. Now that they are grown up they seem to be a bit proud of having that contact as well.

Pia remembers code switching when young, but she is now in the reversed position of trying to help her elderly mother from losing her Danish altogether:

I think I used words, vocabulary when I found better words in Swedish I would just exchange the Danish word for the Swedish one. Now I say to my mother, we have to keep to the Danish, when she forgets. I think it is important for her too to keep that.

Her advice for parents:

I think it is very positive to have two languages, even if I think that my Swedish developed, especially written proficiency developed slower. Also I realise that when I started school, for example the name of flowers, tools, the kitchen things, the things we only spoke about in the family, I didn’t know the names in Swedish.

She believes that her early exposure to two languages may have helped her pronounce further learned languages better:

I remember learning German at school and they said, well, your pronunciation is excellent. I think some of the sounds there were helped by having Danish as well. Probably having more sounds in your mouth made it easier to imitate.

Story 8: Hindko, Pashto, Punjabi, English and Urdu in Pakistan

Nazir came to Sweden to study, but he grew up with Urdu, Punjabi, Hindko and Pashto before learning English at school.

Listen to Nazir’s experiences

Nazir grew up in Lahore in southern Pakistan with parents from Mansehra in the north. His parents were Hindko speakers and the family lived in a neighbourhood with other northerners who spoke Pashto.

My parents came from the north where the major languages were Pashto and Hindko. In the home my parents spoke Hindko to each other, and Pashto to us children. We listened and in time we understood this language well. Many Pashto speakers came to the city. They were friends of my parents and spoke Pashto, not Hindko. They came and lived together in the same street. So their children spoke good Pashto and I was used to playing with them. These two languages were common, especially Pashto in my childhood.

When he started school his language situation became more complex:

After the age of four or five I went to school and in school it was our national language which is Urdu. It was compulsory to speak only Urdu in the school, eight or nine hours a day. The common language of the south province was Punjabi. Punjabi was very common, not in the offices or schools, but outside, in the common life. So outside, in the market and the shops or visiting the language was Punjabi, the language of that province, Punjab. I was also used to speaking this, not in my early years but from eight to ten years when I was out with other children I would speak Punjabi. These four languages were very common in my life.  I always used to speak Pashto at home and outside the home. In the holidays, from June to August we went to the northern area and they were all speaking Hindko there so I understood what they were saying and they understood me in Pashto and Hindko. It was no problem.

Nazir did not find it difficult to communicate in Urdu and Punjabi, and believes that watching TV helped him before he started school.

We looked at TV, at series and cartoons, all in Urdu. There were only one or two programs in Punjabi. Otherwise everything was in Urdu or English. So it also helped us to understand Urdu from the beginning. You know, Punjabi and Urdu, there is not so much difference. And I think from television I learned more Urdu. We always used to see television. They only used to speak Urdu. Yes, there was a little problem in the beginning, but I didn’t find any problem to speak with my friends. I don’t remember that it was a problem to speak Urdu.

In addition, English was introduced early in Nazir’s schooling:

When I started school at four and a half or five my parents sent me to a good school that offered English from the first level. I could understand the basics of English at that age. We learned to read and write English at the same time as in Urdu. We studied maths in English after two or three years. This was a good step in Pakistan where English is an official language.

The ability to use English is important in Pakistan and gives its speakers status:

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan. You can use this language everywhere in the street, schools and offices and they will understand you are a good and educated person. In our Urdu there are many sentences in English. People use English and Urdu mixed, so then other people will think yes he has very good manners, very good education. He knows how to treat others, how to respect others with words and sentences. You can also speak Punjabi or Pashto. They are also good languages, but they are provincial languages, not the national language. Urdu and English are the national languages.

Nazir was aware from an early age that his parents spoke a different language to each other than to him.

I was aware that they were speaking a different language than I had at school and that I spoke myself. But Hindko, Punjabi and Urdu, there is so little difference. Pashto is quite different. In our street there were many people living who spoke Punjabi so we learned Punjabi easily, but they never learned Pashto.

Nazir is glad he has his linguistic skills and would pass on more than one language to any child he might have in the future, but he feels the majority language is most important.

It depends where we will be. I would prefer to speak the main language of that place. In Sweden I would speak Swedish and Pashto and English. I will try Pashto, but I don’t think it will be good because no one will speak Pashto with him or her.

Story 9: Turkish and Swedish in Sweden in the 1980s

Benjamin has been living in Istanbul for the past year, but he grew up in Sweden. His mother moved from Turkey to Sweden with her parents when she was eight and his father is Swedish. Benjamin heard Turkish while growing up, but his mother did not usually speak Turkish to him.

I grew up hearing Turkish all the time. My mother spoke it to her sister and her parents. Almost the whole family went to Sweden. She had a brother and a sister. The thing was that my mother, by leaving Turkey at the age of eight, and not really studying it at all in Sweden and not really going back to Turkey to keep the language alive, she was left with a child’s Turkish. Of course she could communicate and manage fine in Turkish, but still, the fact that her Swedish has become better than her Turkish, combined with the fact with that my father does not speak Turkish, kept her from teaching us the language. There are several other factors too, but these are the most obvious ones.

Despite this, Benjamin’s mother tried to make him familiar with some Turkish

When I was a kid, perhaps three or four years old, she tried to teach me the vocabulary of Turkish. She used words that rhymed, so it would be easy. It is quite funny, she did a good job. Apparently I knew words such as fork, knife, plane, window, cupboard, things like these. And then, one day (I have no memory of this), an old Turkish woman approached us, and they talked. And my mother was so proud of me, because I knew these words. And she went: go on, say these words. And I gave her a couple of examples. And this woman pinched my chin in a very sinister way, so I started to cry. After that day, my mother says that she could not get any Turkish out of me. I guess she tried a little bit and I didn't want to speak Turkish, because I associated it with the pain. From that point, I didn't know any Turkish. I knew words such as “Hello”, “How are you?” and some religious terms, because we were still raised Muslim. But they are mostly Arabic.

His parents’ divorce when he was 12 meant that Benjamin became more interested in his Turkish heritage.

I had a teenage rebellion time and began to identify myself with my mother and the Turkish culture and identity, which was hindered by not being able to speak the language. I made friends with many Turkish and Syrian people. I started to pick up the language on my own. There weren't any Turkish people in the area I was living in, but when I was 13 I started in a new school more centrally located. It had Turkish students too. It was coincidental, but that is how I met these Turkish people. I really enjoyed learning Turkish this way, but it was difficult. What I remember is, whenever I had the possibility, I spoke Turkish. At the same time it felt slightly silly. I knew some Turkish friends, and I knew how to say “hey, how are you, what are you doing?” to them. But even if I didn’t understand the answer, I would still ask these questions. So I was forcing my way through, no matter what, took every opportunity. This was easier with friends, as I was more relaxed with them compared to my relatives. With my mother I was not relaxed at all. It felt very forced and fake to speak Turkish with her, it didn’t feel right. As she didn’t speak Turkish with me, the development didn’t occur at all. I visited many Turkish relatives in Stockholm, and became closer to them. With relatives, it went better, as their Turkish was a lot better than my mother’s, and then I could ask, and they would explain and I made a note in my head. They were very thrilled! They knew my mother did not speak Turkish to me, so they supported my effort. It was not just matter of language, but also wanting to know what being Turkish was, and wanting to know myself. They considered it as a compliment, so it was well received.

Benjamin wishes things had been different when he was growing up.

My mother sent me and my brother to the mosque, they had us reading Arabic, which we didn't understand, reading the Quran, and it felt ironic in some way, they send us here to read Arabic, just to learn to read it, not understand it. And at home there is a language that carries so much more, so many relevant things for us, and she didn't teach us that. I wished that my mother would have spoken the language to me. Of course, the learning experience was crucial for me as a teenager and a human being, and it also brought me here [to Istanbul] where I met my wife, so I am very grateful for that. But, this is something I have realised now: I was struggling, and I could ask my mother a thousand times: why didn’t you just learn? Even though her Turkish wasn’t very developed, it's just about talking, and it’s just to start talking to the children, so they at least learn something. I started from zero.

Nonetheless, something of Benjamin’s early exposure to Turkish must have stayed with him. Now, after just a year in Istanbul, Benjamin is fluent in Turkish and can sometimes pass as a native speaker.

My awareness of Turkish of course is to large extent about grammar rules and vocabulary and opposites and so forth. But pronunciation was something you could practice infinitely. It's just repetition, really. I have always had this talent to imitate, I am good at imitating Swedish accents and also some English ones. I applied that imitation talent to Turkish and of course, it's not perfect. Sometimes I make a big effort to sound native. If I don’t get too many questions I can pull it off. Normally they think I'm from the Balkans, sort of Balkan-Turk or something. I’m quite light-skinned compared with Turkish people from the East of Turkey. Grammatically, I would say I'm very good, but of course since I have only lived here for a year, I think that the fact that gives my way is not my grammar or my pronunciation, but the choice of phrases and idioms. There are so many in Turkish, and I am not so proficient in that area, and that is what gives me away.

Benjamin married his wife, who is a teacher of Turkish as a foreign language, just a month before our interview. He is adamant that he will pass on both his languages to any future children they might have:

I think it depends on where we would raise them, if it’s in Turkey or Sweden. They would have Turkish from their mother of course, and also from society. What I would do is teach them Swedish, and of course, I have thought about teaching them English, also, but I need to do more research about how many languages they are able to learn in a young age. Nevertheless, if I could teach them Swedish, they would have a Germanic language as their mother tongue, and learning English in school would be easier for them than having Turkish as their mother tongue as it’s from a completely different language family. But I will definitely teach them Swedish.  What would be more difficult is that my wife would like to be a part of that, she has to learn Swedish also. But she’s very good. She speaks good English and has taught English. She might confuse languages a bit in the beginning.

His advice to parents in the position his mother was in when he was growing up is clear:

Try to make an effort to teach the language to your children, because they will thank you so much, in the end. Even if you don’t have the time or the will, or the linguistic knowledge required to make an effort, just talk. Just talk and pass it on as much as you can. Because it will stick, you know, and one day, even if the children don’t speak at all, they will understand a lot, and the step from not speaking to speaking will be a much smaller one. So I think that would be my advice. And just remember that language is never bad, it’s always positive. They have a saying here in Turkey: one language, one man. So if you know two languages you are two men, meant in a positive way. So according to Turks, I am three men now. You can communicate and broaden your mind amazingly. You know, it carries the culture, so that would be my advice not to neglect it.

Story 10: Krio, English and Mende in Sierra Leone in the 1980s and 1990s

Now Anthony lives in Sweden with his family (listen to his story in Parents). But he grew up in Sierra Leone with several languages.

Listen to Anthony’s experiences

Anthony lives in Sweden now, but he grew up in Sierra Leone. His parents were Mende speakers from the interior and moved back there from Freetown, the capital, while Anthony was still a child. Anthony’s first language was Krio, an English-based creole.

I grew up in the capital city, Freetown. In Freetown we have a general language that everybody can speak, Krio. We also have 16 different dialects, and everybody speaks his or her own dialect but Krio is a general language that everybody can speak to understand each other. I was about 11 years old when I moved back to the interior with my people, Krio was not actually common there in Bo, which was the second capital city. We had a local language called Mende. I never spoke Mende before going to Bo. In Bo the Mende people live. When I went to Bo I was forced to start learning this new language, Mende.

English is the official language of Sierra Leone and is the language used in schools.

In school, English, everything was in English. But in the last ten years they have changed the system a bit. Now they are trying to teach people the local languages in school. So people in the capital city Freetown can choose if they want to learn Krio or Mende or Susu or Temne in school. When I was in Freetown, in class 3 or 4 we were talking English and Krio. In the playground Krio mostly. English was taught in school, but after school we talked our language which was Krio. When I went to the interior, to Bo, I didn’t speak Mende. I only spoke Krio, but most of my schoolmates when I started school in Bo could not speak Krio properly, they only spoke Mende and a little bit of English in school. So I would go to the playground and try to speak Mende and I tried to speak Krio. So through the playground where we used to hang out together, playing football, being with them and that is how I actually learned Mende firstly. It was not that difficult at my age, at 11 or 12, I really tried to adapt to the system as quick as possible as I was trying to learn the language. The community was only Mende, about 98% spoke Mende. You go to the shop: Mende, you go to the town: Mende, you go to a ball field it’s Mende. So within a year I could actually speak Mende properly. It was fast and simple for me.

Anthony’s family did not share his problems as they were originally from the Mende-speaking interior.

The adults in my home spoke Mende because they are Mende. Everybody in the house spoke Mende. I could not speak it but most of them, like my elder sister, they have lived in Mendeland so they could speak it perfectly.

Despite this background, Anthony did not learn to speak Mende at home in Freetown.

They tried to speak Mende to me, but not every day. They only spoke Mende at home. I spent more time with my friends speaking Krio and English. When I came home they talked Mende but mostly I didn’t understand what they were saying. So I never learned to talk Mende in Freetown with my people. I only learned to talk Mende when I went to Bo, with my friends. I was determined to learn the language. I had to be with my friends and make new friends and go out and play. Even though I wasn’t much interested in football I went out and played. Then I started speaking. People were somewhat surprised and happy that I learned the dialect. We started speaking Mende at home. It came easily. I could understand most of what they were saying.

Of course Anthony’s accent in Mende was and still is influenced by his Krio.

Yes, I came like a city boy to the interior. They used to call me Kriobobo, a city man. Because I was new, I didn’t speak Mende. It was both negative and positive.

Later, Anthony learned other languages:

Susu is one of the Sierra Leone languages. I really learned it when I was in Guinea. Susu is one of the major languages. I applied the same system as when I started talking Mende. Wherever I go, I want to talk the language. Like when I came to Sweden. When I came to Guinea I tried to make phrases and to learn the local language. I was 16–17 when I started learning Susu.

English is the only language Anthony has learned to write in.

I had English from my first day at school. Even now I am studying in English. I have been studying English as my primary language from childhood. If I write in Mende or Krio, I only write according to the sounds. Nowadays, many people who have studied it in school write perfectly in Mende or Krio. Now the teachers teach how to write these languages. When I went to school I never had the opportunity.

Anthony believes that it is very difficult for a child to learn a language other than the majority language where he is growing up and that it would not have helped him if his parents had spoken their language, Mende to him when he was young in Freetown.

Even if they had spoken Mende with me from childhood, Mende is only spoken in the interior. I was in the capital city which is a Krio-speaking city. It would not have made any difference. But if I had been born in Bo I would have wished for them to speak Mende to me. But the city we were living in was Krio speaking.

Now that he has a child of his own, he is sympathetic to her desire to communicate with him in Swedish, the majority language in Sweden where he lives with his Nigerian, Yoruba-speaking wife.

We speak English with her, but she is always fighting with us to speak Swedish. I consider English as her first language and I never want English to depart from her. We started talking English in the house. Now she started pre-school just last year and now it is very difficult for her to speak English. I try to speak English to her and she responds in Swedish. I try to encourage her to speak English. She understands everything I say in English but she cannot respond to everything in English. She responds in Swedish. She speaks good Swedish and she thinks it is very difficult for her to speak English.

Anthony and his wife are keen for their daughter to grow up with English as her first language, but this is proving to be difficult in Sweden and she is losing proficiency in both English and Yoruba.

I really want her to be fluent in English. In the long run maybe she will want to study outside Sweden maybe in an English-speaking country. If she speaks Swedish now and we travel home, she cannot communicate. If she speaks English perfectly she can communicate alright.

Story 11: Swedish and English in Sweden

At the time of writing the third edition of this text, my own children, whose language development has been described in the previous chapters, were in a position to look back on their linguistic background.

Listen to Dave’s experiences

An excerpt from an interview with my son Dave. Here he is talking about the balance between the languages.

This is an excerpt from an interview with my son Jim.

Listen to Tom’s experiences

Dave compares his proficiency as a child with what he has now as an adult:

When I was a young child, I think I was more proficient in both languages really because my vocabulary was basically smaller. There wasn’t that much to keep track of and I had basically a full vocabulary in both Swedish and English. While now I feel it is more fractionalised and some fractions I know a lot better in Swedish and some a lot better in English. And some I can’t really cross between them which can cause difficulties. If I have studied something in one of the languages or read lots about it or even talked lots about it, I’ll be able to express my thoughts about it a lot more efficiently and correctly because I can be more precise in what I’m saying, while if I have read in the other language about it I can only give a basic idea because the thoughts don’t really translate so well. My vocabulary concerning language is more proficient in English. In a lot of more informal things and dealing with authorities I am a lot more proficient in Swedish since I lived basically all my life in Swedish.

Dave attended English medium lower and upper secondary school (ages 13–19) in Sweden and he has recently been studying English at university in Sweden:

In some ways [having English at home] makes it easier. In some ways it makes it harder. I never had to learn the concepts before – I had them intuitively. But in other ways it makes it easier because I've had an easier time reading than most of the students, and writing because I’ve also had more practice in that since I’ve been studying in English for a long time, which makes it easier than for the average Swedish student who hasn’t done that.

Now he speaks both languages on a daily basis.

I have friends I speak Swedish to, friends I speak English to. The same thing with family: I speak English to my mother and Swedish to my father and siblings.

He often switches between languages.

It depends who I’m talking to. Some people I keep it very clean which language is which language, while some people I speak Swedish to I will switch maybe even several times in a sentence. These are people who are very proficient in both Swedish and English. And so it makes more sense to be as precise as possible, switching and then switching in a language. It often happens subconsciously. People will tell me that wasn’t a very sensible sentence in any language, but it makes sense put together. Sometimes it is conscious. I definitely don’t do it if I’m speaking to someone I know doesn’t really speak English. Then it doesn’t make any sense; they wouldn’t understand me. I have to think more about it so I can express it.

But he never speaks English with his siblings.

No, I think that’s got to do with growing up only speaking Swedish to them. It has become a strict rule in my head somehow.

As a student of language, he has set himself high standards of proficiency.

I feel that I'm not entirely native in either language. I’d say I am native in some parts in both languages and some parts only in one language. I can’t say I am completely native in either language. I make mistakes in both languages. I often see myself that I have made mistakes, especially when I read through things I write and see it isn’t a great grammar for this language. Certain parts of the language, I just don’t have it for both languages. […] I try to make sure to read high-level texts in both languages and somehow to cross the fields a bit when possible so I can have vocabulary in both languages. They are different and force me to think slightly differently, which has an effect on how I perceive the subject.

He can see both advantages and disadvantages of a bilingual childhood.

I think if I was raised monolingually I wouldn’t have the confusion in language that I have, but at the same time I feel that slight confusion is certainly worth it for all the advantages of having two languages. I would have probably been better at that one language if I had been raised monolingually but then I would have less languages, which wouldn’t make up for that. I’m not perfectly native in either language. It’s a big disadvantage to feel I can’t express everything I want in any one language. I feel it’s limiting in many ways. But at the same time it is at a cost that is definitely reasonable compared to what you receive.

Nonetheless, he would be keen to help any future children to become proficient in both his languages.

I think I’d definitely try to get them to have two languages. I think that would be good for them. But at the same time I could understand if they didn’t want it, but it would be worth the effort. I would definitely try to get them to learn both English and Swedish.

Dave spent a semester as an exchange student at an English university and could usually pass as a native speaker of English.

The other exchange students were very confused. They saw me as Swedish although I spoke very good English to people in shops and I understood the discourse, which was more of a cultural thing that you might not learn at school. I think my English friends could tell, but only after speaking to me for a while.

Now back in Sweden he feels that his identity has parts of both sides

I think a big part of me is Swedish, but then there is also a big part of me who isn’t. It’s not even half and half. I mean, there’s more than half of both. But I don’t feel that I have two cultures either. I feel I lack something from both cultures. But I feel I fit in in the Swedish culture very well.

Tom has also had experience spending time on his own in English-speaking countries, working in Ireland, and studying in Scotland for a year.

Limerick was interesting because then you couldn’t rely on your Swedish; you had to rely on your English. If you didn’t know the word you had to think. But it was interesting language-wise. In Scotland it was the same thing, you couldn’t rely on your Swedish there. I could make myself understood and they could understand me, so that was not really a problem. They treated me as a Swede because there were other people from other countries so it wasn’t really foreign in that way. In England or Ireland I would feel like a foreigner. I mean OK, speaking English, but I would present myself as coming from Sweden more than being Irish or British.

Tom is positive to a bilingual upbringing

It’s good to have two languages; even if it might be hard to teach simultaneously, it’s good in the end for the child to have two languages.

My son Jim remembers trying to make sense of the way languages were used.

When I was younger I thought it was strange that people spoke Swedish to their mothers and some bilingual people I knew also spoke English to their fathers which I thought was strange also. In my world, people spoke English to their mothers.

Jim went through different periods with his languages.

I remember I had periods when I only spoke Swedish or English. I remember a brief period when I think I was about seven when I could almost only speak Swedish. I spoke Swedish all the time until I went to Ireland in a monolingual English environment. Then my English recovered. Otherwise I think that as I got older, when I was perhaps about nine, I began to see my bilingualism as an advantage. Because, I mean, I knew English well. It was a good thing to know.

Now he feels that his Swedish is stronger than his English.

The English I get mostly from TV and reading and films and so on while socially my Swedish is better because it’s only my mother and my home language teacher I actually regularly speak English to. So I feel my Swedish is stronger. I haven’t been in an English-speaking country for a long time. I do feel foreign, but at the same time I feel some kind of bond to the English-speaking world. I'm not completely foreign. I could manage. I know what to do in different situations, but that’s more cultural than linguistic.

Jim feels that having two languages has made it easier for him to learn Russian and German at school:

I felt there are some advantages. Especially when I have learned grammar and the technical side you can see well it’s like this in Swedish and this in English. You can compare the differences. At the same time I haven’t learned a foreign language until recently – I haven’t learned English as a foreign language

He sees other advantages too:

Apart from the fact that my English has been greatly improved compared to other people my age, I also feel I can easily switch between languages in a way I know other people can’t. It’s no big deal for me to incorporate foreign words into my conversations. It happens quite a lot. I use English words in my everyday language, which is quite common for people my age, but perhaps I use it a bit more. And it happens that I use other languages, German words, which is not a big thing for me but other people notice, oh you used German now. I think I use the same English words in Swedish as other people but more, and I think I use more expressions than other Swedish kids. I can sometimes say a whole sentence in English where other people won’t. Also, when I think about it I sometimes use expressions in Swedish which have English grammar or which are English idioms.

Jim’s advice for parents with young children is similar to that given by almost all the people interviewed in this chapter:

They should just speak their language, their mother tongue rather than trying to teach your children broken Swedish. I see it as an advantage to be growing up with two languages and a mixed background. I think also some part of learning Swedish and English has been stories and culture. I remember my English language being stronger when I was younger. I had to catch up my Swedish childhood later, perhaps with children’s programmes and stories. I think it is not just two languages but also cultures I have been brought up with. You have always something to tell, some story you heard when you were young and you can relate to that. It is a great creative resource.

Story 12: English, French and Swedish

Clare lives in Sweden now, and has a son of her own (listen to her story in Parents), but she grew up in Canada, a bilingual country. Here she tells me of her experiences as an English-speaking child in Canada, learning French and later Swedish.

Listen to Clare’s experiences