My nephew, an Indian-Canadian born and bred, is visiting India with his Scottish-Canadian wife and came home to make a typical desi courtesy call on my mother. I found myself curiously pleased when I heard him trying out his Bengali on my mother though she is fluent in English.
The accent was definitely North American, but at least he knew enough of his mother tongue to try. The point I’m making is not that Indians growing up abroad should know their mother tongue to keep in touch with their cultural roots, but being multilingual is not tough; in fact it’s wonderful.
He and his sister were born and brought up in Anglophone Canada, but parts of that country also speak only French. In fact, his sister and her Irish-Canadian husband have put their son in a French medium school.
