Segment 33 – Which Languages Do You Speak At Home?

Language and multicultural topics are always an interesting conversational subject in international circles.  From San Francisco to New York to London to Paris to Bangkok to Hong Kong, the international community is rich with diversity from many corners of the world.  Globalization has transplanted families and individuals across the world allowing social integration amongst the foreigners and locals. My life can pretty much be summed up as such...

New unions are often created, as inter-cultural relationships and marriages occur, producing new multi-cultural households with culturally and sometimes racially mixed children. In many cases, where foreign families with children are integrated into a local community, the children become culturally enriched and may find themselves identifying with the local community if they live there through their formative years.

From a very young age, I was a foreigner integrating into a new community, where my parents spoke a language at home different from which I was learning in school and in the local community.  Today, my children live in a household where both parents have different “mother-tongues” due to an inter-cultural marriage, and the entire household speaks a different language than what is taught in school and in the local community.  

Naturally, people in my little international circle, ask me (as I also ask them), “Which language(s) do you speak at home?” OK, living in Spain with a multi-lingual family, it is a fair question.  However, I recall, also being faced with that same question over 35 years ago, when I was growing up in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of American residents speaking a language other than English at home has increases by 140% over the past three decades. The Bureau’s report, Language Use in the United States: 2011 details the number of people speaking languages other than English at home.  "This study provides evidence of the growing role of languages other than English in the national fabric," said Camille Ryan, a statistician in the Census Bureau's Education and Social Stratification Branch and the report's author. Highlights from the report include:

• Of the 60.6 million people who spoke a language other than English at home in 2011, almost two-thirds (37.6 million) spoke Spanish.
• In addition to English and Spanish, there were six languages in 2011 spoken at home by at least 1 million people: Chinese (2.9 million), Tagalog (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.3 million), German (1.1 million) and Korean (1.1 million).

I’m not going to spout off lots of statistics and demographic correlations; you can review that at the official U.S. Consensus Bureau website.  What I found interesting is the foreign born population trends.  Looking at the graphics published by the Bureau, you can see that when comparing 1960 to 2010, over 53% of the foreign born American residents have come from Latin America and Mexico. [See related graphs]

The next interesting little statistic I found on the Bureau’s website is the Married-Couple Households by Nativity Status: 2011 Report. This study shows the American households that are comprise of mixed nativity. [Nativity refers to whether a U.S. resident is native born or foreign born.]  Of the married-couple households in the United States in 2011, about 21% had at least one foreign-born spouse.  Over 40% of those foreign born spouses were from Latin American, Mexico or Caribbean regions; whereas, 26% are from Europe and 23% from Asia.

So an intelligent person looking at these data, can deduce that a growing number of families probably speak more than one language at home, and that along with the increasing trends in immigration and globalization, households will continue to become more mixed in both language and cultural diversity.  

One doesn’t have to rely on the statistics to bring this point home…just ask people (like my friends)…Which languages do you speak at home?

Rose (English), Pierre (French), 3 young kids 

• Parents speak the language of the wife (English) amongst themselves
• Both parents speak their respective native languages to the kids
• Kids speak the local language (Spanish) amongst themselves 
• Kids speak parents’ respective languages to the parents
• Kids seem to “feel” and identify with the local culture (Spanish)

Jenn (American), Phillip (French), 2 kids 

• Parents speak the language of the wife (English) amongst themselves
• Both parents speak their respective native languages to the kids
• Kids speak the mother’s language (English) amongst themselves
• Kids speak parents’ respective languages to the parents
• Kids seem to “feel” and identify with the mother’s culture (American)

Joe (American), Maria (Spanish), 2 young kids 

• Parents speak the language of the wife (Spanish) amongst themselves 
• When in front of the kids, the parents speak the language of the father (English) amongst themselves
• Both parents speak their respective native languages to the kids
• Kids speak the mother’s language (Spanish) amongst themselves 
• Kids speak parents’ respective languages to the parents
• Kids learn French at school
• Kids seem to “feel” and identify with the local culture (Spanish)

Sofia (Spanish) & Javi (Spanish), 2 kids

• Parents speak their language (Spanish) amongst themselves, 
• Parents speaks their native language to the kids (Spanish)
• Kids speak the local language (English) amongst themselves 
• Kids respond to parents in whichever language they are in the “mood” (Spanish or English)
• Kids learn English at school
• Kids seem to “feel” and identify with the local culture (American)

Eva (Turkish) & Tomaz (Polish), 3 kids

• Parents speak a common non-native language (English) amongst themselves 
• Father speaks his native language to the kids (Polish)
• Mother speaks another language (which happens to be her mother’s language) to the kids (Dutch)
• Kids speak the common non-native language (English) amongst themselves 
• Kids respond to parents in the common non-native language (English) regardless of which language is being spoken to them
• Kids learn Spanish and English at school
• Kids seem to “feel” and identify with the local culture (Spanish)

Mia (Thai) and Theo (French), 0 kids 

• Husband and wife speak a common, non-native language (English) to each other
• Husband and his extended family will probably speak the local language to future kids (French)
• Wife will probably speak her native language (Thai) to future kids
• Wife’s extended family (living in Thailand), will probably speak their family language (Mandarin-Chinese) to future kids
• Kids will go insane remembering which language they need to speak with whom because no one (except for their parents) actually speaks a common language in their modern international family!

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. If you happen to recognize yourself in these examples, you are not alone!  

So there you have it.  1+1 can sometimes equal 3 or 4… Language and Cultural diversity at its finest…

  ...Stay tuned for the next Segment of HT LOCALIZATION Presents Language Translations for Real Life Series, where we’ll continue … with more stuff.

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This article was written by Rachanee Thevenet, Co-Founder of HT Localization.  Rachanee is an Asian-American expat living in Spain with her family.  She loves all things international including food, art, literature, culture, languages and people.  She has years of professional product marketing expertise and global expansion experience.

HT LOCALIZATION LLC. is an international translation & localization agency providing a full range of professional language translation services, including social media localization, marketing translations, website translations, software localization, eLearning materials, documentation translations, etc.  With locations in the US, Spain, France, Zambia & Thailand, and coverage across all languages and most industries, HT LOCALIZATION is well positioned to provide around the globe services for all translation needs.  

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