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In the Name of God بسم الله

Do you speak English at home or native language?

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  • Advanced Member
Posted

I feel like a lot of youth in the West, maybe losing their native language or avoid speaking their native language including at home. I don't think they are even interested.

This lead to another question. Can you write Arabic? a sentence or a paragraph ?  again I don't think many of the youth in the west, can write arabic, I think many can read Arabic and that's only because of Quran, Dua etc

  • Forum Administrators
Posted
On 1/5/2025 at 8:22 AM, Meedy said:

I feel like a lot of youth in the West, maybe losing their native language or avoid speaking their native language including at home. I don't think they are even interested.

We speak Urdu at home.

 

On 1/5/2025 at 8:22 AM, Meedy said:

Can you write Arabic? a sentence or a paragraph ?  again I don't think many of the youth in the west, can write arabic, I think many can read Arabic and that's only because of Quran, Dua etc

I can't, but my daughter had a private tutor for Arabic and took the exam for 16-year-olds (GCSEs). 

  • Advanced Member
Posted (edited)
On 1/5/2025 at 1:52 PM, Meedy said:

I feel like a lot of youth in the West, maybe losing their native language or avoid speaking their native language including at home. I don't think they are even interested.

This lead to another question. Can you write Arabic? a sentence or a paragraph ?  again I don't think many of the youth in the west, can write arabic, I think many can read Arabic and that's only because of Quran, Dua etc

Native language (Urdu) at home. English strictly for work purposes. 

I find speaking in English other than necessity to be very pretentious and fake; it sounds like LARP. For those who are reverts from Anglo-Saxon or otherwise Anglophone backgrounds (like African Americans or Jewish) I can still understand why they might speak English at home, but what excuse do the others have to shun their native language? Are they ashamed to be themselves? Seems like inferiority complex to me. (Apologies if someone is offended but I have very strong views on this subject). 

I taught myself Arabic, although I am not very good at it. I can read and write but I don't speak very fluently due to lack of practice (I only know Fusha/Lisaan al-Arab aka 'classical Arabic', and I don't understand Ammiyah/darijas or colloquial). 

Edited by AbdusSibtayn
Guest Window
Posted (edited)
On 1/8/2025 at 10:37 AM, AbdusSibtayn said:

an still understand why they might speak English at home, but what excuse do the others have to shun their native language? Are they ashamed to be themselves? Seems like inferiority complex to me. (Apologies if someone is offended but I have very strong views on this

I am myself when I speak English at home. My first language is English. 

I was born and raised in the US. The US is my home, and I am proud to be an American. I am myself. I was born here. . . . So why would I try to speak a different language just because my parents were born and raised in a different country? That doesn’t make sense to me.

If you were raised in Europe, say, France, you’d speak French. If you were raised in America or Canada or England, you’d speak English. 

Edited by Hameedeh
typo
  • Advanced Member
Posted
6 hours ago, Guest Window said:

I am myself when I speak English at home. My first language is English. 

I was born and raised in the US. The US is my home, and I am proud to be an American. I am myself. I was born here. . . . So why would I try to speak a different language just because my parents were born and raised in different country? That doesn’t make sense to me.

If you were raised in Europe, say, France, you’d speak French. If you were raised in America or Canada or England, you’d speak English. 

And why does some immigrant to the West need to lose his ethno-linguistic identity and speak only the language of the host society? That doesn't make sense to me either. 

Most immigrant families are bilingual or even multilingual. Nobody is asking anyone to shun the language of the host society. But speaking only English and losing their native language reeks of inferiority complex and is LARP. 

They can put on the fake-est LARPy accent and name their children Beowulf and Arthur and Sir Francis Drake but they will never be Anglo-Saxon; they will continue to be what their parents were. It is a LARP, and a laughable one at that. 

 

Guest janna
Posted

I speak Arabic at home with my parents and sometimes a mix of English and Arabic with my siblings. I can read and write but not as good as English. 

  • Advanced Member
Posted

Update: I now speak Klingon at home and Esperanto outside. 

People don't understand me anyways. Why not, therefore, speak to them in some language they don't understand? 

Guest Window
Posted

Someone commented being “ashamed of themselves” for not speaking their parents’ native/first language at home . . . . May I remind you that everyone in Canada/America is “from somewhere else” ethnically, even the “White” ones. No one is telling the person whose family—parents, grandparents—migrated from Denmark or Sweden to speak Danish or Swedish at home if they were born and raised in the US, because they look white so it doesn’t matter. But we all become ticked-off if someone whose parents’ and/or grandparents are from the Middle East or Asia and we expect them to be raised to speak and read/write as if they were not in the US at all.

So why it considered acceptable for an American with European origins to assimilate into American society but not an American with Asian and/or Middle Eastern origins? 

  • Advanced Member
Posted (edited)

Urdu always, especially with the littles, however, we spent some time overseas and they came back fluent in English, and refuse to communicate at least with us in anything else. They will speak to their cousins and extended family in Urdu, or as need be, but I wish it were their default setting, I tried so hard to speak only in Urdu with them all those early years, but now that they are getting older, I am sure there are bigger battles coming, so it is no longer a hill I wish to die on, and do not want to push them unnecessarily. I pray Allah guides us all, inshallah.

Edited by SaharSayyida
  • Moderators
Posted (edited)
On 1/8/2025 at 2:40 PM, Guest Window said:

So why would I try to speak a different language just because my parents were born and raised in a different country? That doesn’t make sense to me.

If you were raised in Europe, say, France, you’d speak French. If you were raised in America or Canada or England, you’d speak English. 

By default you have the culture and language of your surrounding community.  

It isn't your fault your parents didn't teach you, but a person is linguistically and culturally richer if they also are part of another cultural and language community. Additionally, they will be more connected to their heritage. 

It isn't only Muslims. I've had students from all over Europe, Asia, Americas, and Africa who spoke their ancestral language at home and English at school.  Being bilingual or polylingual also increases ability to communicate in English, and improves ability to think creatively.  I wish my maternal grandmother had taught my mother German and my mother had used it at home when I was a child. German wasn't really socially acceptable in the 1940s when my mother was born.  

Edited by notme
  • Advanced Member
Posted
On 2/6/2025 at 4:49 PM, notme said:

.  I wish my maternal grandmother had taught my mother German and my mother had used it at home when I was a child. German wasn't really socially acceptable in the 1940s when my mother was born.  

It would be interesting to see how many of such language subcultures died out because they were the 'wrong' languages for the time. 

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