ABSTRACT
Some parents choose not to speak their language to their children for various reasons. Children in every country are growing up with one or more languages which are not spoken by their peers. They have vastly different family situations, and the languages involved include most of the languages of the world. When they become adults, some of these children will be indistinguishable from their monolingual peers in their languages; others will have one dominant language that they master and varying levels of proficiency in other languages. All in all, the matter of whether and how children are to be given the gift of two languages must be left in the hands of their parents. While bringing up a child with two languages is not unusual or difficult, it requires commitment and perseverance on the part of both parents and other adults close to the child.
