All kinds of thoughts come to my mind as I think of the term mother language. I love the fact that so many languages exist. I love the celebration of language as both art and skill.Yet, working as I do with children and adults in diverse environments, I can't help seeing other implications.On the one hand, celebrating the mother language is a way to understand privilege and language politics. On the other hand, I see children struggling to answer the question of why they don't speak their mother tongue.Sometimes it's because their mother tongue and father tongue are different and speaking one excludes the other parent who, perhaps, does not have the time or mind space to learn a new language. Sometimes, children come from recomposed families and need to make an active effort to integrate themselves into new structures and languages. What of them?Language fluency, or the lack … [Read more...]