I call my daughter Vicky, after VIKI of Small Wonder.
She is cross cultural. In the Indian sense. My husband is Kanpur-ite Raajpoot. I am Bhilai-ite Probashi Baangaali. He is a chain entrepreneur. I could not survive the Private Sector in India & joined a PSU. her first 2 & half years were spent in Bhilai, as my posting was there, living with my parents, in a little extended nuclear family, but in the of a whole apartment of doting দীদাs, মাসিs & দীদীs. Now she lives in our joint family with her दादी, ताऊ, ताई, भय्या & us, & परदादी or परनानी visiting now & then.
She has travelled since she was 2 & half months. She has seen people appear & disappear in her life. Mashi comes, Mashi goes, Dida-mashi comes, Didamashi goes, Bui comes, Bui goes, all the time. She herself goes to sleep in one location & wakes up in another.
She NEVER confused between Hindi & Baanglaa. I do not mean to scare parents whose kids are having trouble absorbing 3 or 4 languages at a time, but at age 1 & half, when her total vocabulary was less than 50, including BOTH languages, & she had NO sentence, she still instantly & without cue, shifted from Baanglaa to Hindi & vice versa depending on who she was talking to. My mother-in-law was a bit concerned initially whether she would "understand Hindi" coming from my parent's home ,but she allayed all such fears within a week. I personally, never gave it a THOUGHT.
But with English I am concerned. Because, we did not speak to her in English. This is because, I must speak to her in Baanglaa, otherwise, she will forget it. Now, she is proceeding from alphabets to sound words & sight words in school. I am very confused as to how to give her sight words, when she has no spoken vocabulary in English.
To figure this out is my first task this school year.
She is cross cultural. In the Indian sense. My husband is Kanpur-ite Raajpoot. I am Bhilai-ite Probashi Baangaali. He is a chain entrepreneur. I could not survive the Private Sector in India & joined a PSU. her first 2 & half years were spent in Bhilai, as my posting was there, living with my parents, in a little extended nuclear family, but in the of a whole apartment of doting দীদাs, মাসিs & দীদীs. Now she lives in our joint family with her दादी, ताऊ, ताई, भय्या & us, & परदादी or परनानी visiting now & then.
She has travelled since she was 2 & half months. She has seen people appear & disappear in her life. Mashi comes, Mashi goes, Dida-mashi comes, Didamashi goes, Bui comes, Bui goes, all the time. She herself goes to sleep in one location & wakes up in another.
She NEVER confused between Hindi & Baanglaa. I do not mean to scare parents whose kids are having trouble absorbing 3 or 4 languages at a time, but at age 1 & half, when her total vocabulary was less than 50, including BOTH languages, & she had NO sentence, she still instantly & without cue, shifted from Baanglaa to Hindi & vice versa depending on who she was talking to. My mother-in-law was a bit concerned initially whether she would "understand Hindi" coming from my parent's home ,but she allayed all such fears within a week. I personally, never gave it a THOUGHT.
But with English I am concerned. Because, we did not speak to her in English. This is because, I must speak to her in Baanglaa, otherwise, she will forget it. Now, she is proceeding from alphabets to sound words & sight words in school. I am very confused as to how to give her sight words, when she has no spoken vocabulary in English.
To figure this out is my first task this school year.
