minoanmiss (
minoanmiss) wrote in
agonyaunt2022-02-03 03:07 pm
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Care & Feeding: I Don't Want My Husband To Teach Our Child Creole
I am currently pregnant. My husband who is American and born to Haitian parents wants to teach our son Haitian Creole. I am apprehensive about this because Creole is not even an official language and it almost seems regressive for our son to learn Creole. The fact is French is the official language of Haiti, but only 5 percent of the population speak French because of limited education of the country. There are three dialects of Creole and my husband doesn’t even know which one he speaks. Additionally, he cannot even read or write in Creole. Creole is not a real language and I feel as though it’s not worth it for him to teach our son. I suggested he teach our son French instead. I’d prefer it over Creole. He says he won’t, and wants to teach him Creole. Am I wrong to think this way? We live in America, and we are both American. I want to focus on teaching our son English and mastering the English language first. What should I do?
—Language Differences
Dear Language Differences,
Why is it so difficult for you to accept that your husband wants to share what he knows about his own culture with your child? What’s at the root of your discomfort with raising a multilingual child? What’s stopping you from teaching your child English and French while your husband teaches him a Creole dialect? What’s driving this (erroneous) preoccupation you have with “real” and “official” language?
I want you to really sit with your answers to these questions. Take some time considering why you’re harboring such strong resistance to your husband imparting lessons on his (and your child’s) shared cultural identity. You married someone Haitian American. Your child, the grandchild of Haitian grandparents, will have and should learn about his Haitian heritage. Get comfortable with that reality.
One of the reasons languages and dialects are lost (or become categorized as “unofficial” by people living outside their lands of origin) is those languages are not passed down from one generation to the next. Their nuances are gradually ceded to the assimilation native speakers have deemed necessary to survive. It’s no coincidence that your husband doesn’t read or write in the Creole dialect he learned. He is trying to prevent what spoken dialect he knows from being lost to his child. He wants to pass down what he and his family have worked hard to retain. There’s nothing at all objectionable about that.
You asked if you’re “wrong to think this way,” and the answer is yes, Language Differences. Your attitude in this letter reads as not just wrong but xenophobic and racist. Despite that, I do hope you’re all able to reach an agreement on this issue that works in the best interests of your child.
—Stacia
I'm a polyglot
Maternal grandmother (English and German Jew) spoke rather disdainfully of Yiddish, and didn't use it, preferring French and Hebrew.
In high school, when I was taking French 3, I was paired with a Haitian classmate because I understood her speech and only the teacher understood her otherwise, not our other classmates. I can usually communicate with people, if I have even a base language in common. My teen taught themselves classical Greek to read Homer and history of Alexander the Great, and is learning Chinese for a favorite donghua, Heaven Official's Blessing.
We did use American Sign Language with the teen as a baby, on top of the other household languages.
Sometimes I like not understanding why (mostly American) people are proud of only speaking one language...
Re: I'm a polyglot
I am in AWE of you.
When I was about 9 or 10 I said in exasperation to my parents, "Why did you move from one English speaking country to another?" (they're Jamaican and raised me in the US) "All the other immigrant kids I know are bilingual or more! But I only know English!" They were amused.
Re: I'm a polyglot
I turn 50 this year. I just got my bachelor's degree last March. I didn't graduate high school, but got my GED before my classmates graduated. I'm difficult to school, but I know how I learn after all these years.
Relatives who are speech therapists on both sides of my family were aghast that we were teaching our baby sign language. They "won't be able to talk"! Ha. We never had the toddler tantrums because toddler could ask for things and choose. Toddler also could communicate with ASL to my sister-in-law with a Deaf coworker, to my mother-in-law's shock. 😂😉
Re: I'm a polyglot
I'm not proud of it, I'm just terrified that I'm bad at other languages and, uh, have a little problem with trying things I'm bad at.
Thank you for this, though -- I'm going to try hitting Duolingo again so I can try speaking to my partner in Russian sometime.
Re: I'm a polyglot
I can order my meal at a Japanese restaurant but I'm (autistic) lousy at the Japanese status/courtesy levels . I was taught to go low level to high (peasant to royalty) as excusable from white gaijin woman. It's amusing when I'm talking to waitpeople and I called my Japanese-American cardiac surgeon a minor deity for what he removed from my heart in open heart surgery in August 2017 with profuse gratitude!
I'm autistic with selective mutism and a stutter. I can be stuck non-verbal across 10 different languages, so I don't say I'm fluent in even English. But I could generally help even English language learners at the library get something to review or listen to! I'd try to learn at least a greeting in one of their languages, too.