I joined an online forum a year ago. Let’s not get into the details of what that forum is about, but talk about what I earned from it. The most beautiful thing that the forum has perhaps given me is a few dozen Bengali-speaking friends hailing from both Bangladesh and West Bengal. Some of them are Bengali expatriates like me, living in countries like America, Canada and the U.K. Together we have a knitted a virtual circle of friends, which has the potential of lasting a lifetime. It’s a twist of fate that one of the friends I found on that forum lives only 15 mins away from my home! But when we first became virtual friends none of us knew that we lived so close to each other.
She is older than me and I call her didi or di. She is married with a 12-year-old son. First we talked over the phone and then we met each other for the first time at a concert in Philadelphia, PA, where Kolkata’s musical band, Chandrabindu, performed. She then invited me and my family to her place for lunch and then we invited her family to our place. Then she invited us again to her home. In short, we are seeing each other pretty frequently now. My friend and her husband are from Kolkata and they speak our first language, Bengali or Bangla.
Language brings people closer to each other and when two people speak the same language, it brings them even closer. When I see my 2.5-year-old daughter and my friend’s 12-year-old son talking with each other in Bengali, it brings a smile to my face. My daughter has found a Bengali-speaking brother here in the U.S.! America is not me or my husband's native country and we don’t have friends and family living within close distance. Therefore, finding another Bengali-speaking family with whom you can mingle is like a blessing.
My daughter was born and is growing up in America. As a native of the United States, I know in the future her language of choice will be English. No matter how much we speak Bengali at home, the more she is exposed to the world outside the four walls of our house, the more she will feel comfortable conversing in English. My friend’s son was born in the U.S. too but he is also fluent in Bengali - the credit goes to my friend and her husband. Therefore, last week while visiting with my friend's family when I saw two American children talking with each other in Bengali, my face broke into a big smile.
I want my child to know at least two languages because bi or multilingual children are believed to be smarter. I myself am proud of my own ability to write and speak fluently in two languages. Languages widen a person's horizons and they enrich a person in so many ways.
An article titled, Bilingual Children Are, In Fact, Smarter Than Other Children, published on HuffPost Living on Sept. 4, 2014, says that “greater information processing efficiency required in learning two languages at once gives babies the chance to develop skills for coping that will give them the upper hand when it comes to navigating early education.” It's not just because of smartness I want my child to be bilingual, I want her to be fluent in both English and Bengali so that she can communicate comfortably with our friends and family back in Bangladesh.
A friendship that began online without two people seeing or hearing each other has developed into a sisterly bond. One of the best outcomes of this bond is perhaps my daughter’s greater exposure to my native language, Bengali.
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