My children don’t speak my mother tongue – as a second-generation migrant, it fills me with sadness | Saima Mir

Which language immigrant parents should speak at home has been endlessly debated. For now, we have not passed Urdu onto our children

As a second-generation British Pakistani growing up in Bradford, I was surrounded by Urdu and smatterings of Punjabi. English came later, and I can remember not being able to understand my teacher on the first day of nursery. This was all part of my parents’ plan: to speak in Urdu to my siblings and I because they knew we would learn English at school. They were right.

There have been countless debates over the years about which language immigrant parents should speak to their children, and the impact of that on their studies. I’ve never been convinced of the benefit of dropping one language in favour of the other. Because of my parents’ decision, I’m able to speak both languages fluently. I write for a living and worked as a journalist for the BBC, and my multilingualism has only enhanced my life. It gives me access to other worlds, stories, film and poetry. Whether it’s ordering cuts of meat in the butcher, placing an order in a restaurant or discussing designs in a clothing shop, it adds joy to my life, allows me to weave in and out of communities, and frees me from the constraints of any one group.

Saima Mir is a freelance journalist and author of the 2021 novel The Khan

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