r/multilingualparenting • u/koryoka • 5d ago
Family Language Question How common is it for second-generation immigrants to lose their heritage language? Does it vary by culture?
Hey everyone,
I’m curious about the experiences of immigrant families (or people who grew up around many second-/third-generation immigrants).
From your own experience or what you’ve observed:
Do 2nd-gen (or later) kids generally speak their parents' heritage language fluently?
Is language loss in the second generation a universal trend across all immigrant backgrounds, or does it happen more often in specific communities?
Do expectations around keeping the mother tongue differ significantly from one cultural/ethnic group to another?
Would love to hear your personal stories, family dynamics, or general observations!
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 5d ago
I'm 1.5 gen Asian Australian (so grew up in Australia since age 6).
I have found with 1.5 gens, at least within my Taiwanese and Canto speaking friends, there's a much higher likelihood of them retaining the language.
But the level of fluency maintained varies greatly. I can't say I have enough sample size to really guage what's the main influence. Though I will say MOST of the time, spoken fluency is maintained but not literacy. Literacy especially becomes less and less likely to stay maintained fhe younger people are when they came.
But for people who were tweens or teens when they came, literacy and fluency is maintained at a much higher level. ESPECIALLY if there's reinforcement at home.
If there's no reinforcement at home, then even literacy can atrophy.
So for example, I have a friend who came at age 10. So later than me. And yet his Mandarin fluency is at a lower level compared to myself. And he is no longer literate either.
His parents were very busy at the time and he had no siblings so basically, exposure and maintenance of his heritage language dropped to zero and so it atrophied significantly.
But my brother who came at 11, had the opposite problem. Reading was greatly encouraged at home and we watched a lot of media from the Chinese speaking world throughout our upbringing and going back to Taiwan a lot. So our fluency and literacy was maintained.
Which then leads to another factor which will be parent's education and socioeconomic backgrounds.
For the people I know where fluency and even literacy was maintained, parent's education background had a massive impact. If parents are well educated and they care about the maintenance of the heritage language, then time and money will be spent to ensure heritage language is maintained.
Whereas I have found through threads on this sub and also, observation from friends, if parent's aren't highly educated and/or are not wealthy and are busy keeping a roof over their head, then heritage language is less likely to be maintained.
I will say MOST 2nd gen Asian Australians I know DO NOT retain their heritage language though. Perhaps because they don't have the early years to solidify their heritage language and thus maintaining it becomes hard.
Out of everyone in my generation, only one of my cousin can't speak Mandarin. And he's the only one born and raised here. Though his parents also divorced so that probably had an impact as well.
As for other ethnicities, I have found Arabic speakers in Australia seem to keep their languages. At least the more recent immigrants.
Russian speakers seem to be able to keep their languages much better than other cultures I have found.
But there was a news article I read somewhere where they have found Greek Australians, who have been in Australia since the 50s, are much able to keep Greek around compared to Italian Australians.
And they have found it's because Greek Australians have their own Greek Orthodox churches whereas the Italians have increasingly moved to local churches within Australia to attend mass.
So essentially, the Italian Australians have lost a social congregation area on a weekly basis and a reason to keep using Italian whereas the Greeks continued to have that space to keep using Greek.
My local public school that I used to attend taught us Greek at school due to the larger Greek population. This was back in the 90s.
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u/koryoka 5d ago
So, does it ultimately come down to having dedicated physical spaces to sustain heritage language use? From what I know, though, even when some ethnic communities have regular gatherings, the children still tend to speak English or the local dominant language amongst themselves. That makes me wonder if there are other contributing factors at play as well.
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 5d ago
I don't know the specifics of Greek Australians. It was just an article I read.
My own take is, it's largely a combination of the following factors
- Parent's own socioeconomic background
- Parent's education background and their fluency in the heritage language
- Parent's determination
- Environmental factors
- Kids' personality and disposition
- Luck
The biggest factor, I believe, is #3 - parent's determination.
If I think back to all of the people I've encountered who is still fluent and even literate in the heritage language, it's because their parents were determined and pulled all stops to make it happen.
Now, if the parent also have the money, resource, time and the education background to teach their own children in the heritage language, then this supports their determination and increase their odds of succeeding.
Environmental factors could mean a lot of things. Perhaps they had no choice but to use the heritage language in their daily life. So for example, in my cousins' case, they were raised by grandma who spoke zero English. For my brother and I, this need was manufactured because our parents made a hard boundary that we were only allowed to speak Mandarin with family members. In a similar vein, I have manufactured this as well with my son and made sure he doesn't speak to me in any other language but Mandarin.
And then we were also taken back to Taiwan every summer holiday, thus creating more environmental reasons to keep using Mandarin.
But these manufactured reasons is possible because my parents had the resource and time to do so.
Then personality and also, luck. If your kids bow down to peer pressure easily and at school, there's seldom any other people like you who speak another language, then peer pressure may push the child to reject the heritage language.
But if your child isn't influenced by peer pressure as much, then they might resist that.
Then the luck part will be if they find other peers like them. My cousins ended up finding other Mandarin and Cantonese speaking friends, thus creating more "need" for them to keep using Chinese.
My son started school this year and there are Mandarin speakers in his class and they all became friends and speaking Mandarin with eachother. Again, this is pure luck.
But regardless, I think parent determination makes the biggest difference because when the parents are determined, they will utilise everything they have - be it time, resource, money to make it happen.
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u/NewOutlandishness401 🇺🇦 + 🇷🇺 in 🇺🇸 | 8y, 5y, 2y 5d ago edited 2d ago
I tend to agree that it boils down to parental determination and to the parents being clear-eyed about what matters in maintaining their kids' language.
This summer, we schlepped our kids to a Ukrainian language camp in one of the Ukrainian enclaves of our city. They were the only kids there who were born in the US, and the rest were immigrants with both parents speaking Ukrainian and/or Russian. There were no families in this camp with even a single English-speaking parent, so parents' fluency was not an issue.
And what I've found is that my kids were basically the only fluent kids at this camp, with most other kids being much more comfortable in English and, even if forced, unable to produce speech that was not heavily littered with English.
I interpret this as the Ukrainian parents' lack of understanding of what it takes to keep their language in their family. There is a naive but widespread view that if parents are fluent in the language, the kids will automatically be as well. And there is very little appreciation of how persistent the parents need to be to not allow English to enter their relationship with their child. Parents don't correct English use in their kids, sometimes even seeing it as a good thing -- look how my child has assimilated!
So as a result, all these immigrant kids have super wobbly Ukrainian just a couple of years after immigrating from their home country, and almost all of them speak only English to other kids, even other Ukrainian kids.
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u/aszlema 4d ago
Yes exactly this. Most parents are honestly just surviving in the new country, working multiple jobs and trying to build a better future for their children. I don’t think preserving their language is their priority, surviving is. I wish my mom would’ve sat down with me and practiced Hungarian reading or writing but she was a single mom working fulltime to survive so she had different problems.
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u/NewOutlandishness401 🇺🇦 + 🇷🇺 in 🇺🇸 | 8y, 5y, 2y 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, that's what was missing from my response: time and money. Many immigrants are having to work long hours and just don't have the time to spend with their kids, supporting their language development.
And in our area, where we are lucky to have public 3K, Pre-K, and soon also 2K (lucky for the US, that is! perhaps commonplace in the rest of the civilized world), they will always send their kids to these free English-language programs as soon as they can rather than pay for private language-immersion programs or do the stay-at-home thing that's so helpful for minority language maintenance.
So it's often a matter of privilege to be able to afford to keep the minority language strong.
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u/omegaxx19 English | Mandarin (mom) + Russian (dad) | 4M + 1.5F 4d ago
Absolutely.
I immigrated to Canada around 7-8 and lived with my mom who was a single mom. She was an anomaly among her peers: she did put some effort into my learning English, but most of her effort was spent making sure I did my daily Chinese reading and writing exercises. As a result I am by far the most advanced in Chinese fluency and literacy amongst all her friend's kids--the rest can barely have a conversation, let alone read or write.
My mom's own language or verbal communication skills are not good. That is actually a reason I think she focused so much on mine: she suffered enough the disadvantages that she wanted to give me the advantage of being fluent and literate in multiple languages.
My in-laws are much less supportive of multilingualism, curiously enough. They've actually asked my husband why we don't raise our kids like "normal American kids". Thankfully my husband is oddly attached to his language/heritage.
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u/BulkyHand4101 2d ago
I interpret this as the Ukrainian parents' lack of understanding of what it takes to keep their language in their family.
This is my experience as well (as a South Asian American). Most immigrants would love for their kids to speak Hindi/Gujarati/Telugu/etc. But they simply don't know how to pass it on.
Why would they? Everyone back home in India "magically" spoke the language, so how would they know the US would be different?
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u/NewOutlandishness401 🇺🇦 + 🇷🇺 in 🇺🇸 | 8y, 5y, 2y 2d ago
Everyone back home in India "magically" spoke the language, so how would they know the US would be different?
It's wild how prevalent this thought is, isn't it? No intuitive appreciation for how much context matters. Very odd, and yet very common.
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u/BulkyHand4101 2d ago edited 2d ago
From what I know, though, even when some ethnic communities have regular gatherings, the children still tend to speak English or the local dominant language amongst themselves.
IME it really does come down to the community.
I'm a South Asian American, as a kid I went to a "Hindi sunday school" which also taught about Indian culture. Everything was in English. All dance/music events were in English, cultural events were in English, adults would speak to kids in English, often even classes themselves were conducted in English.
And then the adults wondered why the kids weren't speaking Hindi.
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u/Organicolette 5d ago
Regarding the parents' educational background, my experience is completely another way around. The less they are educated, the more likely the children speak Chinese or other heritage languages. Basically because they don't really understand the local language nor English and the kids need to speak Chinese to talk to them.
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u/MikiRei 🇹🇼 (heritage) + 🇦🇺 (community) | 6M 5d ago
Good educational background doesn't necessarily mean they are proficient in English. My parents were well educated - IN CHINESE. Their English wasn't at the same level though. But they were well educated enough in Chinese to provide us with high quality Chinese exposure. And also have the foresight to realise they need to maintain Chinese and leave English to the community.
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u/alexblablabla1123 English | Mandarin + Shanghainese 4d ago
My head theory is 2nd gen Asians who grew up in lower socioeconomic (emphasis on social) status tend to lose their heritage languages because they perceive them as “uncool”.
It’s more social than economic because as can be seen everywhere Asian immigrants tend to be economically successful no matter their backgrounds.
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u/oogs88 5d ago
a bit of a different take- my parents immigrated as toddlers, and their parents worked 24/7 and wanted the kids to assimilate in america. so their cantonese is enough to speak to their parents but completely illiterate. (we’re also talking not deep conversations either). i did friday night chinese school for a few years but never was able to advance past the first level. didn’t speak at home, no support in learning to read or write (attempted outsourcing to uncle) and never went to china… fast forward to adult hood- took a trip to china to see where my family was from. returned for a summer to try and learn mandarin. did a study abroad in college in beijing… so have a solid beginner foundation but once again no use… but now have a kid and my other half isn’t asian so in terms of keeping culture and also just being good to learn languages, im putting a ton of effort/resources into learning myself and teaching her. so i guess 3rd gen can have potential to learn even more than the prev gen, it just depends on how the prev gens were raised/felt etc.
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u/Moritani 5d ago
IME, it depends on mom. If mom wants them to speak her language badly enough, they will. Dads tend to have less time, so they'll take the easier route and just start using the community language.
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u/koryoka 5d ago
That got me thinking: since second-gen kids' native language use is tied to how strongly parents want them to be fluent, are there noticeable differences in that drive across different ethnicities?
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u/OfficeResponsible781 4d ago
It 100% depends on the mother. If the mother speaks the language the kids will learn it to at least understand. If the mother doesn’t speak it but lets the child be around the language, the child will likely learn it.
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u/oogs88 3d ago
can definitely see the mother piece of this- may not always be the case but considering the mother connection when kid is 0-2 which is a key time in them absorbing even though they’re not speaking necessarily… tends to be higher (whether jts bc of feeding, maternity leave, etc). i would say if dad did the same i don’t see why it would be any diff. early on parents are the only ppl they basically know so they’ll latch on to however they need to communicate….
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u/Titus_Bird 5d ago
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that it seems to depend on the perceived "prestige" of the language. English, French, Mandarin and Russian seem to get passed on more often (and at a higher level) than African or South Asian languages. I don’t know whether that’s due to parental attitudes or because it’s just easier to pass on a language with more speakers and resources.
There are also certain groups who seem particularly good at maintaining their language despite it not being a major world language, like Armenians, Serbs and Albanians.
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u/Just_Ease5476 5d ago
Very common especially if they find no use for it, or don’t really care for it
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u/koryoka 5d ago
Is this more common in specific ethnic groups, or is it a universal thing regardless of ethnicity?
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u/InfernalWedgie 5d ago
Depend on how much community support you have. If you are the only Uzbek in the village, don't count on your kids being able to have full command of the language.
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u/aszlema 4d ago
I think some ethnicities are really proud of their heritage (Turks) OR have almost been wiped out (Jews, Armenians) and therefore try whatever it takes to preserve their culture. And then most ethnic groups don’t care and just want to blend in in the new country and try to build a new life there.
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u/Ancient-Carrot8447 5d ago
I'm sure that you know that there are a ton of factors that contribute to whether 2nd+ generation immigrants keep their heritage language, so that's why you're asking for different experiences, but I just wanted to underline that I have very little idea how typical my experiences are or not!
I'm 2nd/3rd-gen Taiwanese/Chinese American. I grew up in a community of mostly other 2nd-gen immigrants, many of whose parents are from China, so most of us knew Mandarin. But because we met in school (mostly middle school/high school), we spoke English with each other. I guess it also served the practical purpose of not excluding our friends who didn't know Mandarin, but I'm not sure that that ever crossed our minds because English was just the language to speak at school.
The vast majority of my friends were required to speak their heritage language at home, whether that was Mandarin or a different language. We never had this rule at my house growing up, so I basically only spoke English at home. (My mom also encouraged us to speak English to her when I was really young. She said that it was so that she could improve her English, but looking back, she may have been worried that we wouldn't learn English if we spoke Chinese at home.) A lot of my friends also attended Chinese School on the weekends. Because of this, I was kind of embarrassed (and gently teased) about how bad my Chinese was compared to everyone else's in high school.
That said, while taking Mandarin classes after graduating from college, I found that my grammar instincts for the language and pronunciation are a lot better than those of people who did not come from Mandarin-speaking backgrounds even though I could probably count the number of times I actually spoke Mandarin on one hand from the age of 10 to 18. I would also be willing to bet that even though my friends were fluent with home language, most of them would have a harder time using more formal language or discussing more academic topics in their heritage languages compared to people who grew up in a context where the heritage language is the majority language.
I should probably note that even though my Mandarin speaking skills were pretty weak, I was probably able to maintain a decent level of passive fluency because when I would go with my mom to run errands, a lot of people would speak Mandarin to us, like at the Chinese supermarket, the bank, the hair salon, the dentist, restaurants, etc. I would assume that people who grow up in communities where their family is the only one that speaks the language are more susceptible to losing even this passive understanding of their heritage language.
Feel free to ask if there's anything you're specifically curious about!
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u/Birgitde 5d ago
I think it depends on whether or not both parents speak the language. It can be hard to keep up a language when only one parent speaks it because it is essentially not spoken at home as a whole or only as a novelty language between the parent and child. I also think it depends on the community and how diverse it is around them. Probably kids and families don’t want to be the only people speaking a different language around them. They might get stared at or treated differently. But if the community is filled with people speaking different languages, then I think it is more encouraged to speak the heritage language outside the home.
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u/MissingGrayMatter 5d ago
I think it depends on if there is an active community speaking the heritage language around the next generation.
My friend from high school is half Korean, but doesn’t speak any Korean. His mother was from South Korea, but he was born in the U.S. His environment was purely English outside of his mother’s presence. He could understand some phrases, but couldn’t speak at all.
My husband is from Malaysia, where there is a large Chinese speaking population. His mother is second generation and mostly only speaks Chinese. He, as the third generation, speaks English and Chinese fluently because he grew up in a heavily Chinese environment and his education was fully in English. However, he feels his Chinese isn’t well developed (he feels like it’s the level of an elementary school kid because his mom dumbed down her language to talk to him throughout his childhood). He can still communicate with native speakers from other countries, they just may perceive his language as really simple or childish.
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u/lovers_andfriends 5d ago
I'm a 1st generation immigrant. I was born in Thailand and moved to the US when I was 4. Thai was my first language, and now I can't speak much of it (I'm in my 40s, my level of Thai is upper beginner, maybe. I can read some). Once I moved to the US, I was put in pre-school not knowing any English. I remember not being able to understand the teacher. She would have to use hand gestures to help communicate. I was determined to learn English and wanted to avoid being picked on because I didn't speak it. After a year or so, I was speaking English fluently with no Thai accent. My mom would try to speak to me in Thai, but I always answered back in English. After a little while she gave up. I regret not wanting to keep up with it. I think in my mind, I could only be perfect in one language, and English was the one that I needed at the time.
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u/napqueen2020 4d ago
My great grandparents on both sides were born in Mexico and moved to Texas and had their kids in Texas, whom then had my parents, and then myself and cousins were all born in the US.
Everyone before me spoke Spanish. My paternal grandmother did not learn English. My maternal grandparents learned English. My parents and all of their siblings are bilingual. However, once my cousins and I arrived on both my mom and dad’s sides, it’s like they subconsciously all decided they were not going to pass Spanish down and only speak English with us. I have like 60 first cousins, and maybe 10-15 of us speak Spanish/English but that’s mostly because of our jobs, or in my case my thorn in my side that I didn’t know the language but really wanted to. Therefore, majority of my even larger cohort of second-cousins don’t really speak Spanish either. It’s so much harder learning as an adult, and I know my parents generation dealt with racism and punishment in their schools, so I have sympathy, but also, so many of us are cut off from our culture. When I had my first I didn’t want him to go through what I’ve gone through and I luckily found a Spanish immersion daycare and he is bilingual and so is my second and I’m so happy for them.
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u/CuriousLands 1d ago edited 1d ago
My parents intentionally didn't teach us their first languages. We had known some kids in French immersion school, and they noticed that while they were learning two languages, their English skills seemed to be behind for their age - I guess that was the tradeoff for learning 2 at once. So they decided to have us focus on English since that's the language of the country we were actually living in, lol.
I've dabbled in learning Polish (my dad's first language) and kinda wished I knew some when my grandpa got Alzheimer's and kept slipping into Polish. I've struggled to truly pick it up though because my dad has forgotten most of the Polish he knows, and even though my aunt is still fluent and I do talk with a cousin over there occasionally, there's just very little chance to use it, which makes it harder to learn and harder to prioritize over other things.
I never had a huge interest in learning Dutch (my mom's first language) because I didn't know/like people on her side of the family as much, I guess.
But even as we got older, they didn't make any effort to teach us more than the odd phrase. I think just life was too busy, with too many other things going on that were more important, and yeah there just wasn't as much call to actually use those languages so that made it slip even further down the priority ladder. My grandparents on both sides didn't make even a small attempt to teach us, though I couldn't say why.
Fwiw, I do know 2nd genners from other backgrounds too, mostly leaning in the direction I said, but not always. The people I've known with Greek, Indian, Portuguese, Mexican, and Fijian parents don't speak much of their parents' languages - maybe a smattering but mostly not. The people I've known with Chinese parents though, they often (though not always) learn Chinese well and early. Arabic seems to be in the middle.
I think it's interesting because we, and also my 2nd-gen friends, often have other aspects of our family's culture passed down to us - like we got exposed to a ton of Dutch and Polish food, learned about their holidays and such. I'll probably visit the Dutch bakery and listen to Polish music for as long as I live. A friend of mine is in her 40s and is in competitive Greek dancing, and my cousins (half Ukranian) also have done Ukranian dance lessons. But the language stuff, just not so much.
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u/germanfinder 1d ago
my paternal grandparents immigrated from Germany to Canada in 1951. they had one daughter born in Germany 1945, twin boy and girl born in Germany 1949 and my dad born 1954 in Canada so he’s the second gen. German was the language of the household until atleast 1960 I would guess
The 1945 can still speak and understand some German, but has a 100% normal Canadian English accent
The 1949 twins (one deceased) retained limited knowledge of the language and also normal Canadian accents
My 1954 dad, according to him, didn’t know any English when he started school and it was difficult for him- meaning there was no English at home atleast until 1959. in high school he took German class because it was easier for him to pass than other languages and he’s lazy. Now as a 72 year old man, he can recognize some words, especially food or grocery related. But he wouldn’t understand any sentence if spoken to him
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u/Raised_by 5d ago
Very common.
It’s not dependent on ethnicity; it depends on whether the parents are fluent/comfortable in the new language.
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u/milfad_1205 5d ago
My dad is second gen, he didn’t speak it. My grandfather was first gen with his parents being Greek immigrants (one from a Greek village in Asia Minor and the other from Sparta).
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u/NoForm5443 5d ago
I'm assuming 1st gen is the people who immigrated, right? My experience is in the USA, and assuming the first generation came as adults (if they came as young kids, they may behave more as second generation)
The immigrants' kids will almost always keep the language, at least at a decent level (don't expect perfection), the most important factor is whether the immigrants marry someone with the same language (super common)
The 3rd generation may lose it, especially if not both of their parents speak the same language
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u/curiousniffler 5d ago
My mother moved to the US from Colombia at 22. I do not speak Spanish apart from what I learned in school. She was more concerned with learning English. That is a common sentiment of immigrants, especially in mixed relationships. I am now learning Spanish more as an adult. She is happy to talk to me if I ask, but it’s not natural for us.
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u/koryoka 5d ago
Totally! I’ve noticed that quite a few immigrant families worry about their kids’ local language skills (like English). They’re often afraid that speaking their native language at home will get in the way of English, making it hard for their kids to make friends at school. Honestly, it seems like this happens across all ethnic backgrounds.
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u/sigmapilot 4d ago
I think it's probably difficult to predict because modern times are so different to even 1-2 generations ago so we don't really know
My mother was raised native bilingual korean/english but the school system in the 1980s put a lot of pressure on my grandparents to stop speaking korean at home and threatened to hold her back a grade or expel her, so she stopped speaking korean
Nowadays, the culture around being bilingual is completely different, there's so much more access to material in that language on the internet, etc etc, that the next couple generations will be able to establish a new pattern
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u/typed_this_now 4d ago
Not sure how much I can add but it comes down to nesscity and motivation in my experience.
I am Australian, living in Denmark, with an Icelandic wife. We are in a goldilocks zone of trilingual. Wife only speaks Icelandic to the kids, daycare is in Danish, I only speak English to them (I do speak Danish as I’ve been here 10 years) my wife grew up in Iceland and moved here at 12 but her brothers were babies at the time. The brothers are fluent in Icelandic cos that’s all that was spoken at home, Iceland is a 3hr flight away and they visited often and had to use it - even though Danish was with friends and school, the boys first language is arguably Danish.
My kids will have all 3 in their locker. My wife will not speak to them in any other language unless there is a gap and uses English to introduce a word.
My sister is married to a Lebanese guy who fluently speaks Arabic, Spanish, French, and English (they live in Aus). He refuses to speak anything but English to his kids and it kills me. At family things he even speaks French to his sister in law just to “keep from getting rusty” The gift he is denying his kids is crazy. So my half Lebanese nephew will never learn Arabic and my kids will hopefully have all three as long as they are motivated.
If we moved back to Aus, They’d lose Danish eventually because it’s not valued the same way.
I work at an international school and see this play out all the time. It has to be socially motivated or a nesscity like family/social or study and work.
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u/Temporary-Gap-1508 4d ago
Other posters mentioned education level and culture integration of the parents/family in the heritage language - I found this to be the single biggest determining factor for proficiency of 2nd gen when working with families in which Spanish and Portuguese were the heritage languages in my time in the US. The more educated the parents were, or the more they engaged with varied aspects of their cultural heritage (whether "high brow" or not), the more proficient their children or were in the language, probably because they were able to connect with it on multiple levels of their own identity.
It seems like all the posts are assuming you're talking about the US context, so I responded with that in mind, but the country they immigrate to also makes a huge difference to what happens with their children's language, factoring in pressures to assimilate, segregated immigrant communities, cultural support systems and prestige of their language there, etc.
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u/Deep-Promotion-2293 4d ago
I'm first generation on one side and second generation on the other. I speak enough of one language to get by, and can only cuss in the other. I didn't grow up especially connected to either culture or language, more like generic white kid from the south.
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u/persephonian 2d ago edited 2d ago
My cousin is half Greek American and half Italian American, her father (my uncle) moved to the US as a child. She knows maybe 5 words in Greek and Italian. It’s partially why we don’t really have a connection, since we couldn’t understand each other until I turned 10 and had learnt English.
I also have Greek Canadian cousins. One of them knows some decent conversational Greek, while the other never had much interest in using the language and never learnt. But he was already a shy kid who didn’t talk much even in English.
None of my cousins visited Greece regularly as children, only once or twice.
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u/Ling_App 2d ago
From our user data at Ling, one of our top learner brackets is the dispora community and heritage speakers. It quite common for families to want to fully assimilate into their new homes and may believe speaking the new language supercedes the old.
But there are growing communities of language learners wanting to communicat with grandparents, surprise loved ones, connect with their cultures, date within their culture and visit or return to their original lands.
Are you working on a research project or just curious?
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u/Ok_Ad4218 1d ago
One way to develop the kids’ habit of speaking the language is by hearing - while kids are in a growing stage, they should hear the bedtime stories in their grandparents’ voice and language so there is always an attachment to their parents’ language. With the advancement of AI, thats possible now.
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u/ZealousidealPie658 8h ago
Three generation rule for integration.
- First generation is foreign (raised first-hand in the country of origin)
- Second generation is dual (second-hand contact through their parent with the old culture)
- Third generation is native (only vague contact with their grandparent's heritage)
So usually the second generation has some second-hand knowledge of the old language, but not enough to pass on.
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u/Wombats_poo_cubes 5d ago
Depends on how nationalistic the families are. Serbs, Russians, Greeks seem to do well and put effort into their kids learning the language.
South Asians usually lose it within a generation.
If you’re a refugee and your parents/grandparents don’t speak English then you’re more likely to be bilingual.
Most Europeans don’t put much effort into their kids learning their language though.
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u/sciguy11 5d ago
South Asians usually lose it within a generation.
Colonised mindset, unfortunately. Most feel "my kids aren't going back there, why bother", "they'll have an accent", and "English is the language of success".
source: I am of south asian descent and struggling to teach my kids our language. My own family thinks I am "misprioritizing"
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u/Wombats_poo_cubes 5d ago
Not just that, but in Australia anyway, the chances are both parents were fluent in English anyway.
If the parents speak English at home or 50/50 then there’s even less chance.
It’s different if you’ve got grandma at your house.
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u/Maleficent_Pay_4154 5d ago
First gen here
My grandchildren don’t speak English.
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u/koryoka 5d ago
Were your grandchildren born in an English-speaking country?
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u/Maleficent_Pay_4154 4d ago
No they were born in Spain where we all live. Their dad is spanish and my daughter hasn’t managed to keep English going. It’s a shame. We are hoping when they are a little
Older and stay with my DH and I for holidays they will learn as that seems to be the option left
We don’t see them often enough to manage the language alone whilst they are smallEditing to add both my children are fluent English speakers. We only spoke English at home when they were growing up. My DH mother younger is German, oldest speaks son but my daughter almost nothing
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u/Thronnt 5d ago
short answer: yes
second generations dont really feel themselves connected with their `heritage`, they are citizens of the new country they live in(ofc its not new for them, but you get what i mean) and they practically live as that country culture/moral standards
this effects the language too ofc, cuz who else they gonna use the language for except their parents? excluding specific scenarios ofc
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u/koryoka 5d ago
That's true—unless the parents never actually intended to put down roots here in the first place, or simply resource and asset allocation. For example, they might be thinking, 'Just in case things go downhill here or the job market becomes too tough for our kids, keeping up their native language means they'll always have the option to head back to our home country.'
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u/Snow_Couple_8385 3d ago
I’m first-generation Canadian. Once I entered the public school system, my Russian gradually disappeared. Looking back, the families who successfully retained their language often had strict rules about speaking their heritage language at home. In contrast, families who were focused on building a better life, advancing their careers, or pursuing further education, often placed a greater emphasis on adapting to Canadian society. As a result, assimilation happened quickly, and in many families the heritage language was lost within a generation. Now 3 generations in, there is a sense of urgency in the small community to preserve and grow the heritage language before we completely lose our heritage identity.
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u/buch0n 5d ago
A lot of it depends on community support. For example, it is easy for Spanish speakers in Southern California to preserve their language into the second or third generation because the Latino community there is huge. Many second and third generation kids will have friends who speak Spanish and consume Spanish media. They use Spanish in the community, not just with their parents.
For speakers of smaller or less commonly spoken languages, it is much harder to maintain in the second generation. On average, a second generation immigrant may understand basic household speech in their native language but struggle to speak and be very far from fluency.