Bilingual Children/First or 2nd Lang. Acq.

[Deborah D K Ruuskanen]

Hei All!
I sent this reply directly to Liz Bates who suggested it migh=
t
be of wider interest. Sorry if the lines are too long, I
have trouble editing with my software editor - and I cannot
correct errors either because of the time lag between=20
keying and seeing lines on screen.=20
WHERE did this NONSENSE about NOT introducing a child to two =
languages
come from?  I'd like to reply to this, to the original query =
if
possible, including the list it came from.
My first two children were exposed to FOUR languages perforce=
: I am
American, my husband Finnish, we lived in Italy, and our home=
help was
Argentinian.  NO WAY was I going to speak ITALIAN to my child=
ren, and my
husband was as adamant about FINNISH being his language with =
them. This
was twenty-odd years ago: my firstborn took two years to real=
ly speak,
but he had single words for his "rag", mama, is=E4 (daddy), a=
nd sickle
(bicycle which he rode at 19 months).  The rest he got throug=
h by
pointing and grunting. At three he came out with complete sen=
tences in
both English and Finnish, and fragments in Italian.  He figur=
ed out the
homehelp understood Italian, and dropped the Spanish.  His yo=
unger
sister followed his example.  All three of my children are pe=
rfectly
competent in English and Finnish, but forgot their Italian wh=
en we moved
to Finland when the two eldest were four and five.  My daught=
er is about
to graduate from university in the USA, where she is assumed =
to be a
native American, and my son did an AA degree in English in th=
e USA and
came back to Finland to train as a paramedic.  The English wa=
s
reinforced by sending them home to grandparents for summers (=
when we
could afford it) in the USA, where they HAD to speak English.=
  I don't
know the literature on the subject, but having the father spe=
ak his
language and the mother hers has worked JUST FINE with us, th=
ank you.
Please feel free to forward this anecdotal description, and I=
'd be glad
to discuss the problems of raising bilingual children with an=
yone who is
nervous about it.
Sincerely,
=09kela Ruuskanen (PROUD mother and linguist)
--=20
Deborah D. Kela Ruuskanen     \  You cannot teach a Man anyth=
ing,
Leankuja 1, FIN-01420 Vantaa  \    you can only help him find=
 it
druuskan at cc.helsinki.fi       \    within himself.      Galil=
eo