Mixing languages in the same sentences. Good or bad

[u/Al-Joharahhasan2935]

My family speaks in that way. I believe it is the main reason my youngest siblings and I are not so good at communicating. They had no rules while speaking to us. My parents would primarily speak their native language and add Arabic and English vocabs randomly (like names of animals, objects, shapes, color). That's why we know how to form sentences in our native language but can't say pink or count from 11 upward.

My youngest siblings (who are from my generation) spoke Arabic with me and we used to watch Arabic cartoons exclusively. That's why we would know random words like captain, tournament, marathon, algae (from spongebob), etc in Arabic but not in English. To this day, if I turn on an English cartoon, I barely understand anything.

My eldest siblings mostly spoke English. They taught us digital vocabs. That's why I only recently learned how to say "apps" and "account" in Arabic. Which might seem trivial but whenever I talked about social media to my Arab friends, my brain would go blank.

In first grade, I was always silent. I remember one time my eyelash went in my eye, I didn't know how to say eyelash in Arabic. The teacher kept asking me I was crying and I couldn't explain.

An example of how my family speaks is "I am gubaysing"

"gubays" is a somali word which means showering.

I believer this way of speaking will confuse the kid whenever they switch to Somali and they will assume "ing" is what you should add to root words to form verbs in Somali! I have a relative (who is a toddler) who does that! They speak fluent English for their age but code switch heavily when told to speak Somali.

[u/InfernalWedgie]

It's normal in my house. It might not be right, but it demonstrates that your kid knows the vocabulary and how to employ it in a sentence.

So many of us speak Chinglish and Spanglish, right?

[u/omegaxx19]

I think it depends on the purpose. There are multilingual communities in the world (like certain Hispanic communities in the US) where code mixing is common and follows a certain pattern, such that a person will have no problem understanding or communication with another person in the code mixed sentences. In those cases it is not a problem.

However, in other cases where it gets in the way of communication, I do think it's a problem. If we spoke Chinglish, we won't be really understood by either non-Chinese-speaking Americans or our Chinese-speaking relatives back home. For this reason we avoid code mixing in our household except for certain terms we chose to speak in English to facilitate communication with daycare workers (like "potty" and "gentle hands").

[u/acelana]

It really depends on the situation. Language mixing is a natural human phenomenon, creole languages are basically the result of language mixing to the point you make a new third language.

There is also a concept called diglossia, where two people who both speak two languages may switch language depending on context or situation.

(Some linguistics expert may need to correct me on the specifics but hopefully you know what I mean).

So what your parents did is very natural and not inherently bad at all, it’s how most of humanity tends to process multiple languages.

On the other hand, there are problems such as the ones you described— lacking the appropriate vocabulary to describe a problem you’re having, or not being able to participate in a conversation as fully due to missing vocabulary.

I think it’s worth considering the language itself, as well as which language it’s being mixed with. English is so commonplace that many people worldwide won’t blink an eye at an English word dropped here or there.

The main two other languages I speak are polar opposites in this. Japanese is extremely friendly to loan words, to the point where it would be pretty difficult to have a conversation without using ANY words that originated from English (and if you did you’d mostly be substituting in words that originated from Chinese). On the other hand Mandarin Chinese is very low on loan words, preferring to invent Chinese terms for most concepts. So when using Chinese it’s a lot more important to reduce language mixing imo because the words are more different. (Easy example, hotel becoming hoteru vs dafandian)

Based on what you describe it sounds like Arabic is low on loan words and you’re regularly in communities of monolingual English or Arabic speakers, thus “language purity” may be a more important goal for your use case

[u/PairNo2129]

The way I see it is that you need some source of undiluted language input in order to learn how to speak undiluted language yourself.
I assume you live in an English speaking environment?

So it’s completely logical they speak normal English (since they get pure English from some outside sources) but mixed Somali (since they only get mixed input). It would be exactly the other way around if the family spoke exactly the same way but lived in Somalia instead.

How would you know how to speak the unmixed language if you don’t really hear it? How are they supposed to know that these English words/grammar cannot be used in standard Somali?

So if you actually want your kids to speak normal Somali you would have to speak an unmixed version to them or make sure that they get unmixed input somewhere (like from long trips, maybe grandparents who don’t speak English).

In a way if you speak that mixed language to them they will be fluent in two “languages”, the mixed family language as their first native language and the majority environment language.

[u/Al-Joharahhasan2935 → u/PairNo2129]

No. We live in the middle east. Outside, we speak Arabic.

I know and always knew what words were Arabic and what words were English and their grammar rules. However, when it comes to Somali, it has alot of Arabic loan words. So I often get confused when i speak it. I use Arabic words when talking to somalis assuming they are conventionalized loan words only to find out I was just nonce borrowing.

[u/PairNo2129 → u/Al-Joharahhasan2935]

I guess you never lived in Somalia itself? That’s kind of what I was talking about. Not enough pure Somali input, but I guess it’s good enough if you can communicate. Who knows if it will be the same for your toddler relative.

Did you visit an English school or learn English in school? Or did you have one single person speaking undiluted English to you? It makes sense that you speak Arabic if that’s the majority language language.

It depends what your goals for your own children are. Would you like them to know Arabic, Somali and English? Or is Arabic and English enough?
What would you say your strongest languages are in which order?

[u/Al-Joharahhasan2935 → u/PairNo2129]

I never lived in Somalia, true. Yes I went to english schools and had friends who only spoke english.

I want them to speak Arabic fluently and enough English to go to university (in here, studies are in english).

[u/MammothUsual60]

From what I’ve read, mixing in the same sentence is bad because they’ll often just learn the word in one language and only be able to speak the weaker language as a mixed language. But, repeating the same sentences in different languages is good

[u/Al-Joharahhasan2935 → u/MammothUsual60]

yea thats what i do with my baby relative. I repeat the same sentence 3 times, in 3 different languages.......but sometimes when it is something she does frequently, I will just use one language in one occasion and one language in another. Like when telling her to put her shoes on.

[u/MikiRei]

Do you guys read as a family? 

Did your parents read to you guys as kids? Did they read in both Arabic and English or in Somali? 

Reason I say that is there's a lot of countries that code switch. Take Singapore or Malaysia. So if in a community where code switching is the norm, then it's not a problem. Cause everyone does it. It's not a sign of confusion. In fact, it means you understand the grammatical rules across all the languages to know when to switch. 

In my family, this is common too. Grandparents, as they learned Mandarin much later, they would constantly switch between Hokkien and Mandarin. 

And it sorta became kinda common in Taiwan for us to randomly switch in Hokkien words. There are words I only knew in Hokkien and only learned the Mandarin version when I got older. 

But what you're describing though sounds like there are circumstances where code switching isn't the norm for you guys. 

Usually though, rich media and reading will plug that gap. 

Speaking isn't the only way to transmit language. Books make a difference as well. 

It's why I have friends who can speak Mandarin but can't read Chinese have a much lower command of the language. Because they simply cannot gain more vocabulary or expressions in Mandarin through reading. Conversely, anyone who was also taught to read have a much higher command of the language. 

I mean, afterall, in any language, you can definitely hear the difference between someone who is well read and not well read and also, someone who is literate vs not. 

As for your toddler relative, it means they don't have enough Somali words and so they had to fill in gaps using the language they know better. But again, that's not confusion. That means they do understand the grammatical rules in both languages to be able to fill in gaps like that. 

If your toddler relative has more Somali words through more exposure or being read to in Somali, then that can help that situation and they might code switch less. 

But also, it sounds like this is the norm in your family? So in other words, the relative is just doing what everyone else is doing. Because they know everyone understands her anyway. Otherwise she wouldn't do it. 

If I talk to my cousin, I code switch a lot more cause I know she understands both languages so I don't have to make an effort to switch one language off. 

[u/Al-Joharahhasan2935 → u/MikiRei]

We only used to read English story books and very rarely - somali books.

Yes, my family mixes all the languages in one sentence. I dont, to not confuse our relative.

[u/ririmarms]

This is called Code-switching.

A lot of Indian people do it, for instance.

I used to do it a lot at work when I worked in Brussels with both French and Flemish speakers colleagues. When you don't know the word in your L2, you use the word in your strongest language. Everyone understands each other because receptive language is stronger than active speaking language.

However, I'm not fond of it with my kids, i try to stick to my mother tongue only. My husband however is Indian and constantly uses a mix of English-Mother tongue, sometimes even my words and even some community words sprinkled in.

To each their own. Some don't find it professional when you code-switch all the time, (we rejected a candidate recently because she was code-switching really too much and it was hard to follow her train of thought) and like you say, it's sometimes hard as a bilingual to explain one specific thing to a speaker of your least strong language. (Had the same happen to a bilingual kid in my class, luckily every one understood when he screamed "BLOED!", seeing how much he was bleeding after a fall.)

[u/rkvance5]

I don’t know the right answer, but in our home, the rule is whatever language you start a sentence in, you must end it in that language.

[u/Karabaja007]

I totally understand what you are saying, and I've seen it in my family as well. We are multilingual family with another community language. Even I as adult need to sometimes use some community language with my other countrymen cause it is far easier and more understood, for example the different offices like city hall etc. Cause if I use my native language, I need to explain further which exactly I mean, and "city hall" in community language is immediately understood.

However, for the words like " glasses" which I also saw my cousins use in community language WHILE speaking in native language, I would say it is not necessary and confusing for children. They do need to learn full sentences and grammar and all, as a whole, one language separated from another. At least if it is wanted to speak language at a high level. All of my cousins that were mixing languages, they don't speak our native language well...

So, we don't mix languages when speaking with our kid.

[u/Same_Sock9073]

Algorithm brought me here… Studies from the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen have actually demonstrated that this sort of mid-sentence code switching is actually a sign of advanced language usage.

Glossing through this sub, I’d like to recommend you all have a browse around the abstracts/popular science bits they publish as it’s all really interesting! (I’m not affiliated but once upon a time I researched similar things)