[Edling] The Pain of Language Loss in Families

[Francis M. Hult via Edling]

BBC

'I can't say my own name': The pain of language loss in families

In 2020, a nine-year-old girl was reprimanded by her teacher for speaking
Turkish to her friend in the playground of their school in Germany. As
punishment, she was ordered to write an essay titled: "Why we speak German
in school." The resulting essay included lines such as: "We are not allowed
to speak our mother tongue. So that we improve our German". Her family made
a formal complaint with the support of a lawyer, who questioned whether a
child speaking English during breaktime would have been punished in the
same way. There is a saying among Germans of Turkish ancestry:  Turkish
isn't a language you learn, Turkish is a language you forget as quickly as
possible.

Full story:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230608-what-happens-when-you-cant-speak-your-parents-native-language
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