My husband's parents speak our country's main language (English) and their native language (Russian) but his extended family (there are only 3 of them here) speak only Russian. We announced our pregnancy a few weeks ago and the main topic they've continued to bring up is how they will teach the baby Russian, make them watch Russian cartoons, etc. I have tried to learn Russian (in-person class, online class, all the apps) but it goes over my head. I work full time, just finished my graduate degree and I'm studying for my board exam now, so any time I could spend learning Russian is time I need for my board studying; I need to pass the exam in order to keep my job.
My concern is that I will be excluded from my own family when our child starts speaking. At every family dinner/event with his family, they mainly speak Russian. His parents sometimes try to speak English (they're both fluent) but it's easier for them to speak Russian. They have full conversations and laugh about stuff and I'm just sitting there clueless. My husband translates for me, but it's an abbreviated version and it's after the joke is over, or it's after his grandma said a 5 min long story and I just get the summary. It gets to the point that I just go to bed early and/or avoid gatherings with them.
So I imagine when our child starts speaking, it'll be more of the same. My other main concern is that I won't know what his parents are saying to our child, or letting them watch. They aren't bad people, but they have many different views on society and I want to know what they're teaching our child. They told my husband that he should speak only Russian to the baby so they'll learn both, but that would mean that in every conversation they have, I will have no idea what they're saying. I can't imagine my toddler speaking a foreign language and me missing out on all of the things they're saying. I explained this to my husband and he agreed it doesn't seem realistic. Learning Russian would be a luxury, it's not a necessity like family bonding and being a cohesive unit is.
After I take my board exam I will go back to Russian language class, but I don't know how long it'll take me to learn.
Is anyone else in a similar situation? Is it a big deal or is it fine?
Which one meant to say Serbo-Croatian
Ugliest given name for a woman
Edit: Every continent except Antarctica
(Note that for this question when I say "Siberia" I mean the large steppelands i Northern Asia and Noertheastern Europe both East and West of the Urals, so a bit larger than what is traditionally called Siberia)
So if I've understood it correctly many of the major language families of Euroasian seem to come from the large steppe spanning the north of the continent.
As I've understood it this is where the Euroasian language family originates, as well as the ural language family, the Turkish language family, and the Mongolian one. While I also know that the Altaic language family isn't a thing as I've understood it the many similarities between Japanese and Korean and Turkic and Mongolic languages also suggests thhar the forebears of these languages originally coexisted in the same area.
All this has led me to the understanding that the sparsely inhabited northern steppe of Euroasia is the origin point of the languages spoken in a majority of the continent and that at several points in pre-history peoples with different language families have emerged from this area to impart their languages on large parts of Euroasia. Why is this the case? Why could this region be so influential? (Unless I am misinformed in which case please do correct me)
Of course, if everyone in the world knows traditional Ethiopian names and we donโt have to teach how to pronounce our names or want to live life without filling forms online.
My mother, with whom I'm quite close, doesn't want to hang out anymore because I only speak German to my daughter, even in her presence.
Here's some context: I'm American, but love learning languages. I raised my daughter speaking German as her first language, and have spoken nothing but German to her since before she was born.
Obviously she also learned English quickly, since everyone else around her speaks it, but I've kept her engaged with German through movies, books and conversations groups.
Now she's almost 12, and life is busy, so often it's only talking to me (and occasional cell phone games) that gets her the daily dose of German, making it even or important to me.
Generally in group settings with monolingual friends the only things I'm saying to her are things like "go wash your hands" or "what do you want to eat" and friends have come to recognize the phrases, even if they don't speak the language. And if it's something everyone in the room should be aware of, I also immediately translate for their benefit
Yesterday I invited my mom on our yearly craft sale outing, and she said that she doesn't want to go because she feels alienated when I speak German to my daughter. She actually understands a lot of basic German after hearing me speak it for 25 years, and she's been around us frequently in the 12 years of my daughter's life, so I told her I'd rather not speak English to my kid, but she can ask for a translation any time I forget to preemptively provide one.
She told me "it's sad to me that speaking German is more important than spending time together," which made me a little angry, as she's always used guilt to try to influence me when we disagree, so I said I would continue speaking German to my kid, and she would have to make her own choice about seeing us.
Okay, friends, AITA?
Info edit: my daughter does speak English with my mother when we're together.
Hello all! I apologize in advance if I should not post this in this subreddit, but I thought that this subreddit would be the best one to post this question on.
Does anyone have resources for the Italic languages to share? Resources for tongues such as Archaic Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, Faliscan, Proto-Italic, et cetera? Maybe even Italic alphabets? Thank you very much in advance!
Also, is there a better subreddit to post this type of question on? Maybe r/linguistics? Thanks again!
My father tells my mom that I never talk to him much about things, like about my life etc.
The reason for this is because he never seems to show a true interest or always says something to piss me off.
I'm 26, live in a very expensive state so of course i live together with parents and I help pay some bills/help around the house. I have spent 2017 to 2018 in debilitating anxiety that kept me home. Since then I've been wanting to get out and explore now that I have my anxiety somewhat under control, however I have an unhealthy spending habit since then and until this year but I am working on finding better coping mechanisms from my stressful job as a behavior technician for kids.
My goal in life is to earn a masters degree at a university in Sweden. I know it'll be a few years before this can happen as I have debts to pay off and a student loan for my bachelors, but I have recently come back from a trip to Sweden to check out the school and I love the area. I've been studying Swedish for only 6 months and will continue to do so.
I pay for a language tutor once a week, and study swedish as much as I am able to between.
My dad asked what I wanted for Christmas and I stopped wanting useless wasteful trinkets and nerd stuff I used to like and suggested for language tutor credits.
My dad then proceeds to say "still doing that?... stop wasting your money on that... focus on building a nest egg before thinking of going international... etc etc."
I'm like first of all it takes years to learn a language, you asked me what I wanted, AND I literally just came from a trip to check out the school.. I KNOW I need money for it. But I need to also learn the language even tho they teach the degree I want in english...
It's shit like this that he wonders why I never share personal things with him...
I'm so sick of it. He practically never supports my goals, always has something to say about them, and he even has different views than me on most things because he's your typical boomer.
I want off this state but my stupidity of spending has stopped me for now until I undo all the damage.
Am I being too sensitive? I just feel like he never takes a genuine interest in anything but then wonders why I rarely share thoughts or ideas or goals with em..
I even shared photos with my family of the trip I went on to visit and he didn't even show any interest, made stupid remarks or made fake interest.
Regardless, anyone else ever deal with nay sayers?
Selena and J Lo barely being able to speak Spanish was surprising to me.
Firstly, there is some history here within his family.
I am English, my husband is Spanish.
We had major problems with his mum and her interference, and their enmeshed relationship getting in the way of our marriage. She'd make little digs all the time - undermine my abilities as a mother etc.
We had a LOT of therapy and are now finally doing better.
The digs with his mother were often around me not knowing the language. I try so hard, I've had many lessons - but my brain just doesn't learn new languages easily.
I'm degree educated, I have professional qualifications and I'm not unintelligent, but when I go and see the in-laws I've often felt that way (Brexit has done NO favours in this way - mediterranean countries seem to think Brits are ignorant and stupid)
Anyway, very long story short - things improved both in our relationship, and with his family - and my visit to Spain earlier this year was better. Only a dig from his dad about him having bad food when he returns home.
We spoke to his sister via video chat today about gifts for the kids at christmas
We were going to chat in English, because the young ones can't understand. But my sister-in-law said they understand English now, so that's scuppered that.
I said "Oh no, you'll have to learn French instead!"
My husband looked at me and said "No YOU'LL have to learn French" and then he started to speak to his sister in French, to which point I was excluded and feeling like a stupid, ignorant idiot for only knowing one language.
Standing alone - this wouldn't be a big deal - but given the history, this feels really hurtful.
I FELT like he was doing it to have a dig and leave me out.
Prior to this, his sister had sent him a text which I (accidentally) saw which was saying she explained an idea about gifts to me in her poor English, and she was not sure I "got the idea" (the idea was VERY simple and straightforward - of course I "got it") I think this is more her joke about speaking broken English, but her English is good - there was no doubt that I "got it".
I don't know, am I being over-sensitive? I thought we had made such progress but now HE is doing this, it looks like it's back to the therapist we go.
Are there certain tenses shared amongst a number of Indo-European languages for example, but not common in other language families? Or certain ways of conjugating? Etc?
I know the foot soldiers are a vast army of peace and love, I'm curious how you say family in your language? sidanelvhi sidanelvhi sidanelvhi!
