Essay On Diversity Of Language

In contemporary America, the diversity of language has undoubtedly grown in prominence, as communication has continued to develop, and cultures have continued to intertwine. With countless forms and types of languages existing in the modern society, many have inevitably learned to speak and adapt to the common language that is English. While it would often be highly beneficial to learn that common language, in regards to opportunities for success, it is also true, however, that if one decides to turn completely towards that common language, he/she is at risk of losing the native language and culture that he/she had been so accustomed to in adolescent years, and vice versa. In my experiences, I have learned that language is often times, so …show more content…
Being that they had lived in Vietnam for the majority of their life, at the time, my parents traveled over with little to no familiarity of the American culture or language. And as they had no close relatives or friends living in America for the time being, they initially felt no desire to adapt to the culture and language that would soon play such a large part in determining their role in the American society. Instead, my parents brought over to America the Vietnamese culture, including the Vietnamese language, that they were raised with and had grown so adapted to. While this helped them in retaining a sense of ‘home’ in such an unfamiliar country, they faced myriad barriers in their efforts to successfully sustain their newly found lives. With constant failed attempts at trying to attain a stable job, and with a baby on the way, my parents quickly realized that they would have to learn this new, perplexing language if they were going to succeed at all in America. Due to economic unavailability, my parents unfortunately did not have much access to ways of learning the English language, so they decided to only familiarize themselves with words and phrases that they felt would be useful in daily affairs-- phrases like “What time is it?” or “Can I you help …show more content…
In addition, with all of my other relatives having recently immigrated from Vietnam, English was not typically the language of choice in my household. For the most part, the only times that I would be exposed to the English language was through television shows for kids that my cousins and I had spent so much of our leisure time watching as the colors of the cartoons came to life, and as we tried so hard to follow along with such an unfamiliar language. This changed, however, as we all entered our first year of kindergarten, where speaking a foreign language would be detrimental to not only communicating with others, but with the exciting process of making our first friends. Initially, I had difficulty communicating with my classmates, and as far as I could remember, I attempted to stray away from the ‘foreign’ Vietnamese language by developing my own language of Gibberish, in which I would respond, should any of my peers say anything to me in English. As the weeks went by, however, I, in contrast to my parents, began to truly familiarize myself with the English language, and began to speak it correctly and more often when communicating with my peers, and cousins. Despite this, I continued to communicate with my parents in Vietnamese as they