Author Archive: Ute Limacher
Language shift in multilinguals
What happens when multilinguals shift language? The process of language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is when a community of speakers of a language shifts to speaking a completely different language, usually over an extended period of time. From a historical perspective, this happened for example when in the now France shifted […]
Continue reading
Language scenarios for multilingual children growing up abroad
There are numerous language scenarios for multilingual children living abroad, i.e. outside of both, or one of their parents countries of provenance (or origin), since there are many different degrees of fluency for the single languages spoken at home, language preferences, and languages might be mixed within the home. Parents might speak the community and/or […]
Continue reading
Songs to remember you…
Whenever there is a friend leaving, I choose to immerse into what I call a blanket of songs, tastes (thinking about the meals we had together) and… tears. It’s sad, but there is something sweet in this too: we make place for the grieve. Every person who comes into our life and leaves it again, […]
Continue reading
Can we help our children feel that they belong?
Whenever I speak with parents of children who grow up internationally, this topic comes up: how can we help our children to feel that they belong? I know about this struggle myself. I grew up abroad with features that were not “local” and, although I spoke the local language like a native speaker, I felt […]
Continue reading