Mother Tongue

My previous post blog about the language we used at home with the kids and had 1 blogger comment about the mother tongue we seldom used nowadays.

Tracy comment:

1+2 mom, have to borrow ur space since u started the subject.Actually, how many of us do speak in our mother tongue nowadays?

Come to think of it. My father's a Hakka, my stepfather's a Hokkien, my mom's a Cantonese. I was under the care of my grandma and she spoke Cantonese with me. My PILs are Hokkiens but they speak Cantonese with my hubby. So, both of us (I'm a banana in Mandarin and hubby's no good in English) communicate in a mixture of Cantonese, English and Mandarin, so how do we speak ur mother tongue with our girl? Hee, hee, confused?

Then our girl will put the blame on us and we should put the blame on our parents and so on ....???*roll eyes and wondering*

In my case, my father is Hokkien and my mother is Cantonese and I born in KL so my parents scare we dunno how to communicate with other ppl that they usually speak Cantonese so they spoke Cantonese with us. Luckily my grandmom (father side) stayed together with us and she dunno other languages but just know Hokkien, so I still know some Hokkien but long time didn’t speak most of the word already forgot (since my grandmom pass away I didn’t speak Hokkien).

My hubby side, his father is Hakka (hor bo 河婆) and his mother is Teohchew. They spoke Hakka with his father but Cantonese with his mother, and between siblings they spoke Mandarin. They very less talk to his father so I very less hear they say Hakka at home. Because of very less ppl used this type of Hakka so my MIL (mother in law) said no need teach my children say Hakka.

Last time I ask my father speak Hokkien with my children because I notice quite a lot of ppl using Hokkien in so many places. Maybe my father didn’t speak Hokkien with us so he also dunwan teach them and my children 1 week once see my father, useless to teach them Hokkien. I hope my children can be multilanguager too.

I still blame my father why dun speak with us in Hokkien, nowadays very less ppl talk their mother tongue maybe soon or later our generation dunno what is own mother tongue are.

I know like some area they still used back their mother tongue eg. At Penang, Klang and Johor usually they used Hokkien. My friend told me, if you in Klang or Penang need to buy drink or food at store. Those ppl speak Hokkien they gave more and count cheap if other then Hokkien they gave less and count expensive. I tried when I went to Penang, we had our lunch at those food store. My father get very cheap price when he order mix rice but I and 1+2dad were very expensive. I know 1 slogan they always said : Ka Ki Lang, Pa Si Bo Xiang Gang (in Hokkien) (in English means same race of ppl, been killed also nvm) (in Manderin means 自己人,打死没关系). They very help same race of ppl dunno is true or not.