Speak English Damnit! (Oh wait, they are)

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LAWRENCE -- After a lunch of hot dogs and rice, Jordy Berges blasted a ball off the wall of the lunchroom at his mother's office, his stomping grounds for the summer.

"No juegues aquí," Yovanna Berges scolded her 7-year-old son, telling him in Spanish to stop.

"Sorry," he answered her, in English.

Berges, an immigrant from Peru, is growing accustomed to such conversations with her son. She is struggling to raise him to speak English and Spanish fluently, which might not seem like a big challenge in the city with the highest proportion of Latinos in Massachusetts. But researchers say Berges and immigrant parents nationwide are confronting a difficult truth: Their children are losing their languages.

According to research presented to Congress in May, even the children of immigrants prefer to speak English by the time they are adults.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociologist at the University of California at Irvine, and his team of researchers looked at 5,700 adults in their 20s and 30s in Southern California from different generations to see how long their language survived. A key finding centered on 1,900 American-born children of immigrants. The shift toward English among them was swift: While 87 percent grew up speaking another language at home, only 34 percent said they spoke it well by adulthood. And nearly 70 percent said they preferred to speak English.

"English wins, and it does so in short order," said Rumbaut, who presented his findings to the US House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration in May. "What we're talking about is a real phenomenon."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/22/immigrant_parents_struggle_to_keep_their_children_bilingual/

to think that was a great part of living in America and envied people who spoke more than one language. :(

here I am trying to learn Spanish fluently and they are losing their native languages.

the kids loose it and the grand kids try to learn it

This has been the cycle from word go

same thing happened in my family, only the language was German instead of Spanish. Great-grandfather from Germany, his son stopped speaking German, his great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren speak German--in fact, one is married to a German national who lives in the US.

who indulged my "practice" on her and we are still great friends.

She bemoaned the fact that her nieces, nephews, and grandneices and grandnephews didn't even try to communicate with their non-English speaker great-grandmotheer (they are a very close family).

I envied her ability to not only speak both languages, but ability to translate and shift seemingly effortlessly between both.

I think that's a very sad peek into a grim future.

"Native" is a fuzzy term.

"Native language" is often used to just refer to a language spoken like a person who has it as his/her first and only language. If you *almost* have the language learned perfectly, you're "native-like". People can start learning a language at age 20 and become native-like (not most people, of course). Pronunciation usually has to learned by age 7 or thereabouts, while grammar usually needs to be acquired by age 12 or 13.

You can be raised trilingual and have 3 "native" languages. You can speak Chinese until you're 5 and then move to a Russian-speaking city: At 20 you speak Russian fluently and perfectly, but your Chinese is that of a bad heritage speaker--and so Russian is your 'native language'.

They're losing their first languages. And if it's done early enough, they'll have a different 'native' language when they mature, their second language. And if the parents take the time to do it right, they'll have two native languages.

Sad thing is, their screams of "Speak English!" aren't limited to North America they want the whole world to have to become similar to them

Spanish-language services are much reduced in France, Russia, China, and the Czech Republic. And Nigeria.

When I was in Cesko, the 'natives' were being arrogant and demanding that the 50k Americans or so actually learn some Czech.

But I'm sure that if I go to Mexico and live there people will expect me to pick up Spanish. Not to do so would be signs of ethnocentricism and imperialism, the usual ugly American schtick.

When Americans find a sufficient reason to learn languages other than English, they will do so. And when immigrants to the US find there is not a sufficient reason to learn English, they will cease to do so. It's what Gal found in a Hungarian speaking area as the villages shifted to German: Self-interest drove the change, whatever ethnic activists and Hungarian "patriots" wanted.

Trust the individual immigrants' judgments on this one.

People should be encouraged to keep their heritage if they want to. It is always nice if they learn enough English to get around but this is just sad. Besides, we can learn much from them and I have always found people to be quite happy to share their traditions and that is a lot of fun.

I was talking to a guy working on the floors in my house. They all were rattling off Spanish to each other and I loved it, it is so beautiful to hear and I speak it so poorly. I told him that I loved listening to his language and he thanked me and responded that they don't hear comments like that very often, usually the opposite. Now why would people be so pissed to hear someone speak another language especially if they can turn around and speak to you almost like they were born here?

I have no idea if they were legal residents or not and I really did not care but they assured me they were being paid a fair and typical wage (I hope that was good) and they were getting benefits. They sure worked hard enough to earn that.

immigrant group that has come to America. This is the melting pot after all. Sad but part of the reality of moving to another country.

Our native peoples have lost or in the process of losing their language. That disturbs me more as they were here first and we made them choose English over their own traditional speech.

I have Choctaw friends who live on the Res in OK, and they told horror stories growing up how they were punished at school or church if they used their native language. Only now is it starting to come back a bit--but they lost much of their ceremony, and have borrowed from the Nakota.

any reservation from what I know. That was done across the country at the res schools.

Their kids will have far more job opportunities when they grow up if they are bi-lingual. But most parents want them to speak only English and teach their families to speak English as well. It is a constant struggle to convince the parents that their children really do need to speak both languages.

One of my great-grandfathers came to this country from Germany in 1872. He married a second generation German-American and they had three children, two of whom lived past infancy to adulthood, one of whom was my grandfather. He could not speak German beyond a few words by the time I came around; he had lost his German very early on in life, well before the turn of the last century. His mother's mother would try to have him speak to her in German, but his accent was so bad, she'd say, "Ach, Freddy, auf Englisch, auf Englisch"

Interestingly enough, both his grandchildren and all his great grandchildren studied and speak the language.

shocking.

SHOCKING!!