Two Articles at Multicultural Mothering

An excerpt of “Two Articles on Bilingualism” follows:
Catch the rest of the post, and many more interesting ones by other of my mum friends at Multicultural Mothering – our shared blog.
http://multiculturalmothering.com

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We flew from Beirut to Abu Dhabi (“adi badi” as Rahul calls it) on Etihad Airways, the United Arab Emirates carrier, a couple of days ago. It was the first of 3 flights that would take us back to Chengdu.
A pretty, blond flight attendant with bright red lipstick guided Leila up a step and onto the plane. “Oh, they are so small,” she said, to no one in particular.

“They’re two,” I responded, not entirely sure what she based her judgment on.

A few minutes later, she walked by, offering us newspapers. For the first time since I’ve flown on a plane with my children, I bothered (dared) to take one. 4 out of 6 newspapers were in Arabic. I randomly picked “The National,” an English language UAE paper. http://www.thenational.ae/

Well into the flight, Rahul fell asleep in Maher’s arms. Leila and I were hanging out. She was flipping through one of her books, so I pulled out the newspaper. The title action photo shot of a leopard pulling off a man’s scalp in Assam, India, was bewildering. The caption mentioned that they caught the leopard.

Overleaf was a picture of a baby, and an article about bilingual brain development. In the UAE people speak both Arabic and English, some also speak Hindi and Tegalog among other languages, because of the Indian, Filipino, and many other communities living and working in the UAE.

Full post:http://multiculturalmothering.com/2012/01/12/two-articles-on-bilingualism/