Multi-lingual home language

My friends Debbie and Karen are a product of a multi-cultural home. Their father is Thai and their mother is Italian. Dad was an architect in Italy when he met mom and married her. They lived in Italy for many years before moving to Bangkok. School in Bangkok for the two of them and their oldest sister, Monique, was international American school.

So what do they speak at home? Most of the time, Italian. Mom speaks only Italian and nothing else. Dad speaks Thai (of course), Italian and English. Debbie and Karen speak fluent English (from school), Italian and Thai. Monique speaks Italian and English, and is probably fluent in Thai now, having moved back from Italy several years ago. But since Debbie and Karen have been together at home longer than Monique, they speak to each other in "Tinglish". Karen said it's a mixture of Thai, Italian and English. They use words in whichever language comes to mind first. That's the special language that the 2 sisters share. Even Monique has no clue what they're saying.

I've only met their parents once. When Dad found out I was from Singapore, he spoke to me in Teochew (a Chinese dialect), to everyone's surprise! Dad is ethnic Chinese from Thailand. No one in the family ever knew that. It took me, a fellow Chinese, to bring it out of him.

We can be multi-lingual. We can be fluent in so many languages that we just can't figure out what our "heart" language is anymore. We function equally well in any language. Yet, when we meet someone who shares the same heritage as we do, suddenly the "heart" language that was buried away for so many years come out. This was the case with Dad. He'd hidden his true identity to everyone in the family, or maybe just forgotten to mention it. So many years later, it emerges because our "heart" language never dies. It's an integral part of us that never goes away. I think Dad felt an affinity to me because of our shared ethnicity being Chinese.

For Debbie and Karen, their heart language is entirely different. In fact, they have a few "heart" languages. When speaking to both Mom and Dad, they speak Italian, since Mom doesn't speak or understand anything else. But when speaking to Dad exclusively, they switch to Thai, Dad's "heart" language. But between the 2 of them, it's their own "heart" language, "Tinglish".

Have you discovered your "heart" language? Go find out what it is. You will be richer for not losing it completely.

Happy learning!

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