Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Language Call-in April 22, 2015


It is question time and on this show we asked about you and what you are doing to sustain your mother tongue or have you lost the connection to a language?

Here is a look at what we were reading.


When you let the language slip away!



It is up to us to protect and sustain the languages we speak!




The PODCAST.



And here is a look at what you had to say.

I'm Russian, been speaking French since I was 7, speak English. Learnt Italian for a year, Swedish beginner's...

How many languages is too much to know? I took to learning New Testament Greek on my own as well

I grew up in Dubai, so I have a basic knowledge of Arabic too. Languages need to be celebrated and preserved

 

But there are German schools here, French  schools, Swedish schools, Japanese schools, etc... 

Maintenan your mother tounge language but love the idea of  the world speaks a common language helps globalization.

This is a topic really close to my heart. I think in English and translate into what should be my "mother tongue"- Gujarati. My brother who is just 3 years younger speaks even less Gujarati than I do. So I've started

Hi James as you may or may not know back home in Canada the government will offer for free or at least subsidize new immigrants English lessons so they can better immerse themselves into  Canadian culture and in some cases French for Quebec.   Do you feel that the UAE government should consider offering free Arabic lessons for expats here (as obviously the UAE does not have immigrants) in order to preserve the Arabic culture?  I, for one, would immediately sign up as the costs for lessons in Dubai, currently, are completely and astronomically unreasonable.  Thanks.

I'm Iraqi with Armenian origins living in the UAE, who learned English and French during my high school.  I believe that each language has a it's own culture and u should feel it as in each has it's own phrases and terms which reflects the heritage.  Therefore languages should be preserved.

...So I've started recording videos of my grandfather narrating stories in Gujarati and audio notes of my mom's recipes. Maitri

In South Africa there are 9 official languages. One of them is called Afrikaans (dialect of Dutch) and as one of the worlds youngest languages is prettymuch a dying language. Sad but a reality.

The one thing I dislike about English is that I tend to become lazy about learning new languages! My mother is Welsh and my father is German and I was born in South Africa. When my mother was angry at me as a child I was told off in Welsh but we spoke english at home. Bee

I've downloaded this app "Duolingo" to brush up on my French (that I learned in school long ago)

So I've started recording videos of my grandfather narrating stories, anecdotes and idioms/proverbs in Gujarati and audio notes of my mom's recipes (so I remember what the different ingredients are called). Maitri

We have a whatsapp group of cousins of various ages and I enjoy being a part of it simply because sometimes they share jokes in our mother tongue- Gujarati- and I actually learn a new word or two through this. Maitri

 
Hi James. Re. Arabic classes, there are currently free classes but in the context of religious studies .. So , they do offer such classes . 

A friend had told me once that there is a committee in France that works to "update the language". Hire I wish every language had a dedicated committee of members that added new words as the need arise every year...

Urdu is another language that's losing speakers... it is such a poetic language but youngsters today find it old fashioned and boring and cumbersome. That's rather sad and I think music could be one way of getting the younger generation on board... Maitri

Afrikaans is one of the eleven official languages in SA and there are nine provinces. Thanx, Neo

Unfortunately some of the current generation thinks that learning or talking in the native language is not so cool. Parents start speaking to their kidsin English from the cradle. Glen

I would advise everybody to not neglect their parent language. 
When I was a teenager in France I didn't want to learn Arabic and my mother didn't make any effort either to teach me. We thought I would not need it. 
God ended sending me here in the middle east and I need to learn it from scratch!  

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