I am doing everything possible to help my children maintain their birth language and connection to their birth culture. Children under the age of 8 will typically lose their language. Children over the age of 12 will typically maintain it. The window between ages 8 and 12 (Josiah & Naomi came to America at age 8) varies. So . . .
We installed the satellite specifically interested in Ethiopia TV . In speaking with Weldu Weldeyesus, an Ethiopian emigrant and PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado at Boulder as well as a member of the Colorado Research in Linguistics editorial board, one of his primary and strongest recommendations in facilitating retention of language was to provide this programming in our home.
We still socialize with the Ethiopian community about once a week, whether by visiting the home of one of our emigrant friends, attending an Ethiopian church service, or eating at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant where the owner and staff have become like extended family. But as of the past month or two the kids have been commenting that they are forgetting their Amharic, so I'm hoping it is not too little, too late. They can still understand much of it, even though constructing sentences and carrying on conversation is fading. I figure if we can keep up the exposure they can pick it up again quickly if the opportunity arises.
And even if their birth language skills continue to fade, there are lots of other fun international stations to browse through and some interesting English broadcast stations as well. We're still figuring out what is what, but many are listed on World TV or the LyngSat listing for the Galaxy 19 satellite. So if you need your fix of Armenian, Arabic, Chinese, Ethiopian, Farsi, Korean, Italian, Pashto, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Tagolog and a handful of others . . . well, just stop on by.
Ciao!
