I enjoyed reading this article! My grandparents spoke 4 languages and were fluent in 3 of them. My parents speak 3 and are fluent in all of them. I speak two and am fluent in one; I used to be fluent in the other (which was actually my first language before I knew any English) but then lost it in my coming-of-age years. It does feel like a tragedy to me that I'm not preserving some aspect of my culture, especially since I remember it being very difficult to keep up with my grandparents just due to the language barrier and different communication styles.
“This form of language loss is a cancer, not a gunshot.”
I enjoyed reading this article! My grandparents spoke 4 languages and were fluent in 3 of them. My parents speak 3 and are fluent in all of them. I speak two and am fluent in one; I used to be fluent in the other (which was actually my first language before I knew any English) but then lost it in my coming-of-age years. It does feel like a tragedy to me that I'm not preserving some aspect of my culture, especially since I remember it being very difficult to keep up with my grandparents just due to the language barrier and different communication styles.
This was a painful line for me to read!
There's a certain irony in me reading this article and writing this comment in English, which is not my native language.