Multilingual Children

It's fashionable now that children speak more than one language. A big reason is parents who come from different countries speak different languages, another because families live outside their country that has another mother tongue or bi-country families live in a third country, and there are also a few who simply want to raise a linguist. Studies show that when you speak more than one language to a child starting at 2 years old, it will make him smarter. Studies also show that crack babies are not any dumber (compared to non- crack babies). Why Joan of Arc's mother probably lived on goat cheese, tuna canapés and wine while conceiving and yet came up with such an offspring as Joan of Arc! The irony is that parents don't have complete control over how smart or dumb their descendants will become. From utero to college, children are and will be a class of their own. I did write a blog earlier that the way we relate to our kids directly affects how they will be as adults. That is written purely in the context of parent-child relationship and has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with how many Einstein DVDs we let them watch, how elaborate our craft activities are or how many organic apples we give them and for that matter how many languages we try to instill or install in their heads. In fact, the manner of giving birth, C-section or vaginal, does not entirely affect their brain development. In the same way that it is not the amount of fish oil a mother gets while pregnant that guarantees a spot in Harvard Law School. Children will speak a language. Sometimes more than one. But whether that is telling of the sum of their Intelligence Quotient is debatable. Language is a skill. Intelligence is genetic. Children are from God.

This morning little Oliver put on a hat and said, "kalo" (a Filipino dialect -Surigaonon- word for "hat"). Awhile later, he was beckoning his toy horse "iriwa" 이리와 (Korean for "come here"). Mostly he speaks English because that is what we speak at home. But toddlers learn whether we want them to or not. And remember, they don't wear a watch. 

"It takes twenty years to become an overnight success." - Eddie Cantor