language families essay

Language Family Definition and Examples

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A language family is a set of languages deriving from a common ancestor or "parent."

Languages with a significant number of common features in phonology , morphology , and syntax are said to belong to the same language family. Subdivisions of a language family are called "branches."

English , along with most of the other major languages of Europe, belongs to the Indo-European language family.

The Number of Language Families Worldwide

Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie: It is estimated that there are more than 250 established language families in the world, and over 6,800 distinct languages, many of which are threatened or endangered.

The Size of a Language Family

Zdeněk Salzmann: The number of languages that make up a language family varies greatly. The largest African family, Niger-Congo, is estimated to consist of about 1,000 languages and several times as many dialects. Yet there are many languages that do not appear to be related to any other. These single-member language families are referred to as language isolates . The Americas have been more linguistically diversified than other continents; the number of Native American language families in North America has been judged to be more than 70, including more than 30 isolates.

Catalog of Language Families

C. M. Millward and Mary Hayes: The website ethnologue.com catalogs the world's 6,909 known living languages. It lists the major language families and their members and tells where they are spoken. The number of speakers of these languages varies from the hundreds of millions whose native tongue is English or Standard Chinese to the relatively small populations who speak some of the rapidly disappearing American Indian languages.

Levels of Classification

René Dirven and Marjolyn Verspoor: In addition to the notion of language family , language classification now uses a more complex taxonomy. At the top we have the category of a phylum , i.e. a language group which is unrelated to any other group. The next lower level of classification is that of a (language) stock , a group of languages belonging to different language families which are distantly related to each other. Language family remains a central notion, emphasizing the internal links between the members of such a family.

The Indo-European Language Family

James Clackson: Indo-European (IE) is the best-studied language family in the world. For much of the past 200 years more scholars have worked on the comparative philology of IE than on all the other areas of linguistics put together. We know more about the history and relationships of the IE languages than about any other group of languages. For some branches of IE--Greek, Sanskrit, and Indic, Latin and Romance, Germanic, Celtic--we are fortunate to have records extending over two or more millennia, and excellent scholarly resources such as grammars, dictionaries and text editions that surpass those available for nearly all non-IE languages. The reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the historical developments of the IE languages have consequently provided the framework for much research on other language families and on historical linguistics in general.

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• Published: 05 November 2018

The evolution of language families is shaped by the environment beyond neutral drift

• Christian Bentz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6570-9326 1 , 2 ,
• Dan Dediu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0704-6365 3 , 4 ,
• Annemarie Verkerk 5 &
• Gerhard Jäger   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9642-9359 1 , 2  

Nature Human Behaviour volume  2 ,  pages 816–821 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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• Language and linguistics

There are more than 7,000 languages spoken in the world today 1 . It has been argued that the natural and social environment of languages drives this diversity 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 . However, a fundamental question is how strong are environmental pressures, and does neutral drift suffice as a mechanism to explain diversification? We estimate the phylogenetic signals of geographic dimensions, distance to water, climate and population size on more than 6,000 phylogenetic trees of 46 language families. Phylogenetic signals of environmental factors are generally stronger than expected under the null hypothesis of no relationship with the shape of family trees. Importantly, they are also—in most cases—not compatible with neutral drift models of constant-rate change across the family tree branches. Our results suggest that language diversification is driven by further adaptive and non-adaptive pressures. Language diversity cannot be understood without modelling the pressures that physical, ecological and social factors exert on language users in different environments across the globe.

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Acknowledgements

C.B. and G.J. were funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 2237; project ‘Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past’) and the ERC Advanced Grant 324246 EVOLAEMP. D.D. was funded by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research VIDI grant 276-70-022 and the European Institutes for Advanced Study Fellowship Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Christian Bentz & Gerhard Jäger

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Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Max Planck Institute for Science of Human History, Jena, Germany

Annemarie Verkerk

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C.B. was responsible for project inception, statistical and phylogenetic analyses, and writing of the paper. D.D., A.V. and G.J. contributed data, phylogenetic analyses and writing.

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Wilcoxon results by family

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Bentz, C., Dediu, D., Verkerk, A. et al. The evolution of language families is shaped by the environment beyond neutral drift. Nat Hum Behav 2 , 816–821 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0457-6

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Language Families

Most languages belong to language families. A language family is a group of related languages that developed from a common historic ancestor, referred to as protolanguage ( proto – means ‘early’ in Greek ). The ancestral language is usually not known directly, but it is possible to discover many of its features by applying the comparative method that can demonstrate the family status of many languages. Sometimes a protolanguage can be identified with a historically known language. Thus, provincial dialects of Vulgar Latin are known to have given rise to the modern Romance languages, so the *Proto-Romance language is more or less identical to Latin . Similarly, Old Norse was the ancestor of Norwegian , Swedish , Danish and Icelandic . Sanskrit was the protolanguage of many of the languages of the Indian subcontinent, such as Bengali , Hindi , Marathi , and Urdu . Further back in time, all these ancestral languages descended, in turn, from one common ancestor. We call this ancestor * Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Language families can be subdivided into smaller units called branches. For instance, the Indo-European family has several branches, among them, Germanic , Romance , and Slavic .

Sometimes it is relatively easy to establish relationships among languages. Let us look at the Romance languages. We know that Italian is a descendant of Latin, a language that was spoken in Italy two thousand years ago, and one which left a great number of written documents. The Roman conquest helped spread Latin throughout Europe where it eventually developed into regional dialects. When the Roman Empire broke up, these regional dialects evolved into the modern Romance languages that we know today: French , Italian , Portuguese , Spanish , and others. These languages form the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family . By looking at the word for ‘water’ in three Romance languages, one can easily see the similarities among them.

The case with Romance languages is unusually easy because their common ancestor — Latin — left many written documents. In most cases, however, the ancestral language was not written. As a result, linguists look at similarities among its modern descendants to establish common origins. Take a look at these examples:

It is clear that the word for ‘water’ looks very similar within each group, but not quite as similar across groups. Languages in the first group belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Languages in the second group belong to the Slavic branch. Although there are no written records of the ancestral *Proto-Germanic or *Proto-Slavic languages, we have to assume that these two ancestral languages must have existed at some time, just like Latin did.

Here is the word for ‘water’ in two more languages. Do you think these languages belong to any of the branches above?

As it turns out, Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, Albanian has no close relatives and does not belong to any of the branches of the Indo-European language family, and Basque does not belong to any language family at all. In fact, it is a language isolate , i.e., a language that cannot be reliably assigned to any established language family.

Read “ Exploratorium Magazine Lecture on the Evolution of Language “

In many parts of the world, there are no written records, and we don’t know enough about the languages themselves. Consequently, we have to resort to grouping languages on the basis of geography. This is the case with many of the aboriginal languages of Australia, the native Indian languages of the Americas, the tribal languages of Africa, and countless other languages all over the world.

According to Ethnologue (16th edition), there are 147 language families in the world. This figure may not be precise because of our limited knowledge about many of the languages spoken in the most linguistically diverse areas of the world such as Africa. The actual number of families, once these languages are studied and relationships among them are established, will undoubtedly keep changing.

The largest language families (those with over 25 languages) are listed below (Ethnologue). There are 6,523 languages in this group, and together they account for close to 95 percent of all world languages (assuming that there are some 6,900 languages in the world). The remaining families account for only 5 percent of the world languages. In addition, there are 53 languages considered unclassified.

*Quechua is also classified as a macrolanguage , i.e., a family of varieties of a single language that are not distinct enough to be considered separate languages.

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4 (page 45) p. 45 Language families

• Published: April 2003
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‘Language families’ discusses why linguists are certain that, for all the Indo-European languages, a single ancestor must once have existed, and how they demonstrate this. The ‘comparative’ method involves a step-by-step comparison of different languages, seeking detailed correspondences that have no reasonable alternative explanation. These correspondences may involve the ‘reconstruction’, as an entity that hypothetically existed in prehistory, not just of a phonetic unit, but also of a grammatical ending. For any similarity or set of similarities, linguists must discount alternative explanations: that they are accidental, that they reflect a prehistoric contact among people whose languages were not immediately related, or a combination of these.

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Language, Culture, and Adaptation in Immigrant Children

Claudio o. toppelberg.

Project Director, Child Language & Developmental Psychiatry Research Research, Scientist, Judge Baker Children's Center, Director of Psychiatry, Manville School, Judge Baker Children's Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 53 Parker Hill Avenue, Suite 304, Boston, MA 02120-3225, Direct phone line: (617) 278 4268, Direct fax: (617) 278 4102

Brian A. Collins

Assistant Professor, Hunter College New York, New York, Direct phone line: (617) 290-7029

In this paper we discuss first why it is crucial, from a clinical and public health perspective, to better understand the development as well as risk and protection processes for the mental health of immigrant children. This paper focuses on Latino immigrant children as they represent the majority of immigrant children in America and as a way to illustrate risk and circumstances that are potentially shared by other immigrant groups. We then shift focus to the main tenet of this paper, namely, that specific aspects of the dual language development of immigrant children are highly relevant to their mental health and adaptation. This argument is illustrated with the case of Latino immigrant children. Finally, we differentiate dual language development and its mental health impact from the dual culture (bicultural) development and circumstance of immigrant children.

BACKGROUND: LATINO CHILD IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

Demographic significance of child immigration.

America is currently experiencing the largest wave of child immigration in its history. Children of immigrants constitute the largest minority and the fastest growing segment of the U.S. child population 24 , 120 . One out of seven children was from an immigrant family in 1990, more than one out of five children has such a background in 2010, and it is estimated that these figures will rise to one out of three children by the year 2020 87 . There is a significant three-way overlap between Latino, dual language, and immigrant children in the United States. The majority of Latino children come from immigrant families, and most immigrant families and children in the U.S. are Latino 137 . Most immigrant families speak a language other than English at home (most commonly Spanish) and a large proportion of children in America grow up using two languages. The past three decades have seen a rapid increase in Latinos in the U.S, with their numbers more than tripling from 1970 (10 million) to 2000 (35 million) 137 . Latino children are already the largest minority group in schools 149 .

The majority of children from immigrant families are “second-generation immigrants”, that is, born in the U.S. to one or two foreign-born parents; most U.S. Latino youth are young (median age 12.8) and from the second generation (52%) 50 , 122 . Despite their young age and growing numbers, empirical research addressing the development, wellbeing and mental health of children of immigrants is lacking, with most of the work focused on adolescents and adults 25 .

Public Health Significance: Risk of Depression, Suicidality and School Failure in Latino Children

Many children of immigrants, including Latinos, live in families exposed to multiple risk factors such as poverty, poor schools, neighborhood violence, discrimination, and disparities in access to health care, education and jobs 2 , 71 , 73 . All these factors are strongly associated with low performance at school and poor psychosocial adaptation, as well as negative economic and health outcomes 87 , 103 , 121 . Most of these factors have been found to be associated with high prevalence of mental disorders. In several important areas, Latino youth are at a higher emotional, behavioral and academic risk than European-American as well as other minority youth 46 , 63 .

Depression, Violence and Substance Abuse Risk Indicators

When compared to European- and African- Americans, Latino youth (both boys and girls) present the highest prevalence of indicators of depression (36%) 46 and suicidality, including having made a suicide plan (14.5%) or attempt (11%), with this risk being astonishingly high among Latino girls 46 , 148 . Most indicators of violence (carrying/being threatened with a weapon or being in a physical fight while on school property, missing school due to safety concerns, carrying a gun and/or weapon) are higher in Latino than in white and black youth 46 . Latino teenagers have the highest rates of illegal injection drug abuse, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and cocaine 46 . U.S.-born Latinos may have higher behavioral problem prevalence 111 and, in large epidemiological studies, higher lifetime prevalence of mental disorders (32% to 24%) 4 than foreign-born Latinos (see discussion about the immigrant paradox below). This has led two prominent Latino researchers to ask the question: “What is it about living in the U.S. that may place Latinos at risk for psychological disorders and suicidal behaviors?” 22 .

Educational Risk Indicators

Latinos as a group have extremely low high-school graduation rates (53%) 91 , college graduation rates, and achievement and reading scores 108 , 143 (at grade 11, they average grade 8 achievement levels), but the causes of such alarming educational outcomes are not fully understood. They lag behind African-, European- and Asian- Americans, in high school completion, high tech education and college admission. Latino children are six times more likely to be placed in special education services. As a consequence, Latino children as a group are more likely to become or remain poor. Educational and socioeconomic status are linked to health in general and to mental health in particular 2 . While there is important overlap between psychopathology and negative educational outcomes (for instance, depression and conduct and antisocial disorders are associated with low educational achievement), the extent to which mental health factors contribute to high-school dropout rates and educational failure in Latino youth is unknown.

Protective Processes and Resilience in children of immigrants. The immigrant paradox

A multidimensional perspective on psychosocial strengths, rather than a narrow, exclusive focus on deficit and pathology, is fundamental in gaining a deeper understanding of the mental health and functioning of Latino children of immigrants. While many immigrant families and their children face the multiple risk factors already discussed, they also bring with them a number of characteristics that may serve as protective factors such as religion, community, optimism, dual frame of reference, and high valuing of education 51 . Many children of immigrants have shown to be extremely resilient despite risk and adversity 86 . Latino parents frequently share the goal to have their children develop instrumental competences and to preserve values related to intrapersonal ( personalismo ) and interpersonal ( respeto ) skills, family connections ( familismo ), the expression of affection ( cariños ) and the value of education ( educación ) 118 . These types of strengths are an important part of the traditions and values of Latinos and other immigrant groups and are widely cited in the literature 25 , 102 , 110 , 120 .

For a long time and based on a deficit model, it had been assumed that recent immigrants would have less favorable outcomes than their U.S.-born immigrant and non-immigrant peers. However, recent empirical work strongly suggests exactly the opposite, namely, that recent immigrants fare better in many areas of health, a phenomenon that has come to be known as “the immigrant paradox” 5 , 52 , 103 . Better physical and mental health as well as educational achievement are being documented in foreign-born Latino immigrants (1 st generation) compared to their U.S.-born counterparts (2 nd and later generations) 72 2 . The first generation has lower levels of depression and anxiety and substance abuse, and higher positive adjustment than their U.S. born peers 11 , 78 , 106 , in particular in those of Mexican and, to some extent, Cuban descent 3 . As stated before, this raises the question of what it is about living in the U.S. that may place Latinos at higher risk 22 .

The knowledge base on Latino and other dual language immigrant children is limited and needs to be significantly expanded. For important clinical, public health and educational reasons, it is critical to understand risk and protective domains specific to the development of these children. Further research expanding evidence-based understanding, and leading to interventions and policy directed at young children of immigrants are critically needed. One specific area that is poorly understood is the impact of these children’s developing linguistic competence in two languages on their emotional/behavioral functioning and mental health.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DUAL LANGUAGE (BILINGUAL) COMPETENCE

Most of the research on language development has centered on monolingual children. While the study of children acquiring two or more languages is still in its early stages, significant progress made in the last three decades will be reviewed in the section that follows.

The Development of Dual Language Linguistic Competence

Domains of language development.

Language competence is composed by competences in specific domains of language development such as phonology (the sound system), syntax and morphology (principles that govern word order and word formation), and lexicon/semantics (vocabulary, meaning), all of which interface with language usage (pragmatics, discourse) 18 , 76 , 132 . While first language acquisition is a life-long process with continued development throughout life, the majority takes place during early childhood 18 , 28 , 93 . Language competence is not a stable construct 80 but, rather, a fluctuating, dynamic, multi-domain capacity 31 , 32 .

The influence of the environments of the child on dual language development

Dual language development is dependent, among other factors, on the type and amount of exposure and the age at which children begin acquiring their second language. Sequential bilinguals acquire their first language (L1) during the period of rapid language acquisition before age 3 and a second language (L2) later. Simultaneous bilinguals acquire both languages as first languages (two L1s). Because Latino children in the U.S. typically acquire Spanish as an L1 and English as an L2 most are sequential bilinguals. The term “dual language” children has become favored over “bilingual” more recently, as it does not presuppose full proficiency in both languages and it allows for the reality of individual differences in bilingual development, with wide variability of L1 and L2 competences. 57 , 66

Sequential bilinguals have their language competences distributed across languages, with varying degrees of skills in each language, particularly in those domains highly dependent upon language exposure, such as semantics 67 , 90 . In this way, it would be natural to find, in Spanish/English dual language children, that vocabulary related to the school context is stronger in English, while that related to the home context is stronger in Spanish. This presents unique complexities in the mental processing of their language systems, and how these relate to their adaptational functioning and their ability to tap into protective resources.

While it is rare for anyone to be equally proficient across all linguistic contexts and domains, high competence in both languages is possible 115 . Also common is for bilinguals to be dominant in one language, but the particular configuration of language dominance varies widely 138 . The dominant language of an individual often fluctuates over time and across contexts 9 , so that language dominance is not stable.

Due to the assimilative forces that propel children of immigrants to learn English quickly, language shift and/or loss starts occurring as soon as they begin school. Second generation immigrants are more likely to lose their first language than to remain bilingual 104 Contrary to the popularized (but inaccurate) belief that immigrant children are not learning English, this process of L1 loss is occurring much sooner than in prior waves of immigration, when it was more typical for the second generation to remain bilingual, and only for the third to become English dominant 68 , 105 , 107 . Outside of the home, children of immigrants often start using English exclusively, and in the home, as much as they can 106 , even when they have learned barely enough to muddle through communication 146 . Considering the frequent discrimination and stigmas associated with speaking a language other than English in the U.S. 42 , it is understandable that children will prefer to speak the dominant, community language. This result of societal and school pressures, combined with a devalued view of the minority language, is truly unfortunate, as there is wide consensus among dual language acquisition researchers that it is not necessary for children to have to abandon their home language in order to develop strong competences in the second, majority language 145 and that proficient bilingualism, a normative developmental process, often results in academic, cognitive and social benefits 38 , 58 , 67 , 84 , 123 .

The development of both the L1 and L2 is to a good extent dependent upon the level of language support and language exposure. “Subtractive” bilingualism tends to occur when L2 acquisition comes at the cost of the loss of the L1, when children are submersed in a majority language with limited support and exposure to their home language (subtractive bilingual settings) 68 , 100 , 135 , 147 . “Additive” bilingualism, in contrast, is common in settings where substantial support for the L1 is offered as the L2 is acquired 68 , which leads to the well-documented benefits of proficiency in two languages 16 , 28 , 36 , 38 . Research from two decades ago 141 suggested that increased movement toward English language use among children of immigrants occurs primarily during the adolescent years as youths spend more time in contexts outside of the home. However, more recent research is showing a shift much earlier, when children first begin schooling and developing proficiency and general preference for the English language. Language shift has been evidenced as early as preschool or kindergarten, and through the elementary grades 101 . Wong-Fillmore 147 found that early exposure to English leads to first language loss—the younger children are when they learn English, the greater the effect: children attending L2 preschools were subsequently more likely to be unable to speak the home language than were children who attended L1 preschools. For all children, there is an established relationship between the linguistic environment at home and children’s later language competence 21 , 116 . Children in stimulating environments show more rapid language development 126 and maternal language abilities contribute to large variation in children’s vocabulary growth 94 . Children from lower SES have lower language skills and smaller vocabularies than children from higher SES 7 , 74 . For dual language children the linguistic environment at home is closely associated with children’s language preference, dominance, competence and usage 57 , 69 . It is therefore clear that the environments at home and school are influential in language development and, more specifically, the maintenance and loss of first and second languages. Societal and school pressures to lose L1 raise serious ethical concerns. Ethical concerns arise because pressing children into losing their first language and the chance of proficiency in their two languages means, in an increasingly globalized economy and diverse society, “to deprive them of access to important job- and life-related skills” 56 .

The development of children’s home language may associate with strengthening of family cohesion and intimacy, parental authority and transmission of cultural norms, all of which can lead to healthy adjustment and a strong identification and internalization of the social values of the family 49 , 70 , 81 , 99 , 136 . Developing L2 skills is crucial for academic success and long-term social and economic well-being 19 , 119 , as children's ability to function within the school context influences school retention, graduation rates and continuation into higher education.

For adolescents, the wide range of media increasingly available in immigrants’ L1s (radio, television, and the Internet) may help immigrants maintain a meaningful connection to their heritage culture and language but also allows increased access to aspects of American society 150 . Likewise, prior exposure to the destination language before migration contributes to better skills in the host language upon immigration 139

Contextualized interpersonal communication skills vs. decontextualized academic language proficiency

All children typically move between language environments throughout the day, as the characteristics of language spoken differs from the classroom to other environments, with a remarkable contrast in the quality of language competences required. Language at home and the playground tends to be contextualized , i.e., it contains multiple references to shared physical, family, social, affective and communicative contexts, relying on shared knowledge (long term memory). It is “individualized” for the listener, who can ask for clarification 35 , 39 , 117 . Contextualized language thus minimizes the linguistic and cognitive processing demands. In contrast, language in the classroom tends to be decontextualized , that is, it is abstract, relies heavily on linguistic and cognitive processing, and is detached from a common outside reference. The message is “self-contained”, to be decoded by any unknown listener without reference or assistance 144 . Cummins 40 formally distinguished the two types of language competences as Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS; the more context-rich, less cognitively complex areas of language use, common in the home and the playground) and Cognitive Academic Linguistic Proficiency (CALP; the more content specific, cognitively demanding areas of language, typical in the classroom). The specific relevance of this to the dual language child is that acquiring CALP in a second language, a pre-requisite for academic achievement, generally takes an extended time (5–7 years). BICS in a second language take much less time to develop (2–3 years) and this superficial communicative ability may mislead adults and teachers into thinking that the child is ready for English-only classroom placement, when in fact the child only has interpersonal fluency—but not enough academic proficiency in English.

Dual language profiles and low language competence

Dual language children can be characterized, at a given developmental point, based on linguistic profiles of age-appropriate competence in both languages (balanced); of low competence in one language and age-appropriate competence in the other (L1 or L2 dominant); or of low competence in both (low L1/L2) 9 , 37 , 97 , 115 , 125 , 142 . The low L1/L2 category is considered here a “low language competence” (low LC) group, while it is hypothesized that children dominant in one language—with “low LC” in the other—may also be at risk. While these low LC groups represent, in many cases, a stepping stone towards established balanced bilingualism or functional language dominance, in others they may arguably be an early risk indicator for adaptation and mental health problems. The low L1/L2 group may also include children with true language impairments and delays, certainly possible in bilingual (as they are in monolingual) children.

DUAL LANGUAGE (BILINGUAL) LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AND THE MENTAL HEALTH OF CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS

Association of language competence and psychosocial adaptation.

It has been well documented that language competence is a critical contributor to the emotional and behavioral development of monolingual children 14 , 132 . However, less is known about how this association is represented for children who speak multiple languages. The empirical research focusing on the association between dual language linguistic competence and mental health and emotional/behavioral functioning is limited 129 . Thus, we will first review the related research in monolingual children and then extend the discussion to dual language children. Language competence is related to mental health in children. On the one hand, low language competence accompanies poor adaptation and psychopathology. On the other, good language skills are the substrate of many protective factors, such as IQ, and communicative, social and school competences. Low language competence has been conventionally and operationally defined in research in monolinguals as language delays and disorders. Empirical studies in monolinguals published in the last decade have shown the high true comorbidity of childhood language disorders and psychiatric disorders 10 , 13 , 23 , 27 , 59 . Longitudinal studies show that the presence of a language disorder predicts greater severity or prevalence of 1) ADHD and externalizing disorders, 2) learning disorders and 3) internalizing disorders (anxiety and depression) 23 . A systematic review 132 indicates that language deficits forecast both externalizing and internalizing problems, but that the risk for externalizing problems is significantly higher. Moreover, receptive deficits are considered to be the most potent risk factors, and specifically associated with diminished social competence, and aggressive and disruptive behavior outcomes 13 . To be sure, non-pathological psychosocial outcomes are of importance in understanding the impact of language in children. Language competence predicts social competence, and literacy skills and school achievement.

Some pathways from language competence to adaptation and maladaptation

Child language competence has internal and interpersonal functions relevant for adaptation. In the internal sphere, language competence is a major tool for emotional, behavioral and cognitive self-regulation 41 . For instance, private speech, the subvocalized transition from external speech to “internal” speech, proposed by Vygotsky as helpful to promote task-related behavior, seems to play an ample role in cognitive, behavioral and emotional self-regulation 17 , 20 , 61 . Semantic competence in labeling of emotions plays an important role in the regulation of emotional and affective states, as well as in practical tasks and schoolwork. Basic language processes underlie literacy and math, and subsequent school achievement. Narrative competences participate in self-image regulation and in the organization of a personal history as continuous and meaningful. A solid inner narrative can be used as a template to forecast and lend cohesion to one’s future states and reactions. Specific aspects of language, such as the development of a theory of the mind (as indicated by the emergence of narratives containing evaluative references to others), help the child to predict others’ reactions and to anticipate consequences. Similarly, certain language domain competences (for instance, grammatical development of verb tenses, lexical acquisition of categories or superordinates, narrative development of temporal anchoring and sequence chaining, and conversational skills that initiate and maintain topics) help move beyond the here and now, aiding with gratification and impulse delay.

In the interpersonal sphere, language competence is a major tool for social communication, crucial for the social navigation of outside world, school, friendships and family life 60 . Pragmatic language skills allow for better gauging and fine-tuning of the exchange with the environment. Verbal humor and verbal aggression are a constant of child language used to negotiate hierarchies and other roles with peers 60 . The ability to narrate is a basic substrate of many other social skills, such as the ability to make new friends. Communicative competence is also necessary for self-agency within the family system, to negotiate with the parent and within the sibling sub-systems. Communicative competence is also essential to elicit emotional responses, praise and useful feedback, to defend one’s viewpoint, and to help in processing stressful and pathogenic events. In summary, theoretical and empirical consideration point to ways specific aspects of language may underlie enhanced attentional, emotional, cognitive, affective and behavioral functioning.

Low language competence: mechanisms and pathways to psychopathology and adaptation in bilingual children

Some intrapsychic and interpersonal implications of language for adaptation are specific to dual language children. Proficiency in two languages can be a promoter of cognitive and other development. Balanced bilingualism–defined as age-appropriate competences of two languages– and successful L2 acquisition are associated with, and may be determinants of, growth in a host of verbal and non-verbal cognitive skills, such as metalinguistic awareness, concept formation, creativity, and cognitive flexibility (intrapsychic aspects) 43 , 44 . Balanced bilingualism is also associated with sociocultural (interpersonal) and linguistic advantages 62 . The cognitive and other advantages may in turn result in increased adaptation and low risk for psychopathology. L1 competence plays an important role in internal labeling of emotions, regulation of inner states, and family functioning. According to a rich case study literature, each language has a differential emotional valence, and the first language (“mother’s tongue”) encodes and labels the first emotions and regulates early mental states 6 . In this way, poor L1 may lead to emotional dysregulation (internal sphere). At home, intact interpersonal communication modulates behavior and emotions 34 ; hence, poor L1 may result in difficulties in family communication and loss of its protective functions 41 which in turn may add to maladaptation. As Wong Fillmore states "When parents are unable to talk to their children, they cannot easily convey to them their values, beliefs, understandings, or wisdom about how to cope with their experiences” 48 .

Language competence is also a predictor of social competence and school achievement. Interpersonally, poor language skills often predict poor social skills in monolinguals as well as in bilinguals. Social competence and communicative competence are correlated 47 . Language delayed children are often poorly socialized 96 , shy, aloof or less outgoing 95 . Their peer interactions are shorter and they infrequently initiate them 113 . Their peers do not accept them well 33 . Longitudinal studies confirm these same links 15 . Communicative competence and social competence are also correlated in L2-learning children; children with poor L2 mastery are treated as babies, not spoken to and often ignored by their peers 113 , 124 . In turn, social incompetence may lead to behavioral, mood and anxiety problems. Moreover, L2 competence supports the child’s intrapsychic emotional/behavioral regulation and access to interpersonal resources (e.g., praise by teachers; understanding rules, schoolwork and expectations). Communication rendered ineffectual by low second language skills may lead to the unmasking or emergence of psychopathology. We argue that good language skills predict growth in social adaptation and low risk of psychopathology. In addition, poor L2 skills interfere with academic performance and predict poor educational outcomes, which in turn feed into a cycle of maladjustment and poor behavioral/emotional outcome. In a clinical study of psychiatrically referred Latino bilingual children, levels of academic language proficiency (CALP) were extremely low, with classroom language demands considered to be ‘extremely difficult’ to ‘impossible’ for 40% of the children in at least one language, and for 19% in either language 130 .

Empirical Evidence for an Association between Low Dual Language Competence and Psychopathology

A basic question is whether language disorders are associated with psychopathology in bilingual children as they are in monolingual children. In a study of Latino dual language children consecutively referred to a child psychiatry clinic, estimated prevalence of language deficits (48%) and disorders (41%) was high, with most cases being of the mixed receptive-expressive type 129 . These prevalences were found to be comparable to prior studies in monolingual children 27 . A second question is whether levels of dual language competence are associated with psychiatric symptom severity. Several analyses of the same sample addressed this question. In a subgroup of children clinically significant emotional/behavioral problems, the correlations between a composite of dual language competences and psychiatric scores explained 45% of the variance in total, delinquency and social problems, and around 20–33% in externalizing, aggression, thought and attention problems, with most associations remaining significant after controlling for the most relevant confounds 129 . In a different set of analyses, levels of language competence in both languages correlated to psychiatric symptom severity, explaining an average 38% (range 28–46%) of the variance in total, social, thought, attentional, delinquency and aggression problems, with no significant decrease when adjusted for relevant control variables. A third set of related questions is (a) whether the language competences in each language act as a unit or independently when it comes to their associations with psychopathology and (b) whether one language is more important than the other when it comes to the relation of language competence and psychopathology. In the above clinical study, the associations between psychopathology and language competence in each language were independent from each other, so that each language explained, overall, as much variance in psychopathology as the other, but the variances explained did not overlap, suggesting that each language plays an important role, but that the roles are differentiable, and that low competence in one language only (e.g., English dominance) would be associated with psychiatric severity in this clinical sample 131 . To avoid the impact of selection bias in a clinically referred sample, these relations were studied in a community-based study of young Latino dual language children recruited from urban public schools (n=228, mean age=6); unpublished preliminary analyses of this cohort suggest the same findings of independent and robust negative associations of language competences in each language with levels of psychiatric symptoms; associations remained significant after relevant controls 29 . In this same community cohort, Spanish and English language competences also accounted for moderate to large portions of variance in multiple dimensions of emotional and behavioral well-being 30 .

In terms of other linguistic communities, adjusting to a new culture and developing English language skills is significantly and substantially associated to immigrants’ home country of origin, even after controlling for factors related to SES 139 . One potential reason is the linguistic distance between immigrants’ first language and English 26 , affecting the time it takes to learn the new language as a function of the distance between the language structure of L1 and L2. One could speculate that higher demands are present for languages that are more distant, in turn affecting adaptation, although no empirical studies have, to our knowledge, explored this question.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DUAL CULTURE ACQUISITION AND DUAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Second culture contact may result in challenging and/or overwhelming demands, known as acculturative stress . Second culture contact and second language contact often co-occur, so that acculturative demands overlap with language demands. However, each one sets in motion different specialized responses. Acculturative demands are met by the immigrant’s varying degrees of bicultural competence, resulting in bicultural or monocultural adaptation (or maladaptation) with their mental health implications 53 , 114 . Monocultural adaptation results from the immigrant’s exclusive adoption of the second, mainstream culture (assimilation) or of the ethnic, home culture (ethnic monocultural affiliation). Of the various proposed models of second culture acquisition, bicultural adaptation is considered by the literature on minority children and adults the healthiest and most successful overall outcome resulting from the ability to develop and maintain competence in both cultures 53 , 83 , 114 . In contrast, language demand is met by the child’s current dual language competence, his capacity to acquire languages, and specific protective resources supporting the child (linguistically and emotionally) in the process of second language acquisition.

Cross-cultural research on immigrants documents large contributions of language competence to variance in acculturation 114 and low language competence as a determinant of acculturative stress 53 and poor social and educational outcomes 72 . Second culture contact and L2 contact often co-occur, so that acculturative demands overlap with linguistic demands. Acculturative stress appears to be associated with psychopathology in Latino youth 22 and language conflict may explain a good portion of the impact of acculturative stress 140 . Bicultural competence of the child and family may have a protective effect, favoring bicultural adaptation. We justify our particular focus on dual language competence by viewing it as a closely connected to but differentiable from bicultural competence.

Cultural Competence in Bicultural Individuals

Bicultural competence is considered the optimal outcome of the acculturation/ dual culture acquisition process and is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional heterogeneous construct 83 . The following component dimensions of bicultural competence have been proposed: a) language competence, b) knowledge of cultural beliefs and values, c) positive attitudes toward both majority and minority groups, d) bicultural efficacy, e) role repertoire, and f) a sense of being grounded, i.e. having support networks in both cultures 83 . Thus, language competence is considered a major building block of bicultural competence: when L2 acquisition is accompanied by support of L1 maintenance, as shown by the research on bilingual programs, bicultural competence is promoted. Other research suggests that language competence explains most of the variance in acculturation 114 , and views its deficits as strong determinant of acculturative stress 53 and as a risk factor 72 . In our conceptualization, being able to communicate in the language of both worlds maximizes the child’s capacity to draw upon available protective resources while at the same time it enables an adaptive response to the language demand. Conversely, non-linguistic aspects of bicultural competence in the child, family and extended social environment have an important protective role in Latino children of immigrants, supporting language and cultural acquisition and minimizing distress.

Dual language competence can and should be explicitly differentiated from other non-linguistic components of cultural competence, as it has a unique and central role within the broader construct, and its own constraints, qualities and complexities that set it apart from other dimensions in the bicultural competence construct. Dual language competence is differentiable from other elements of bicultural competence in at least the following five ways. First, the linguistic systems mobilized in L2 and bilingual acquisition are relatively independent and involve specific strategies. Second, acculturative stress is fully conceivable and observed even in the absence of language barriers, such as in the case of non-immigrant minorities. Third, while bicultural adaptation may ideally tend to compromises as a way of resolving cultural conflict, the conflicts between discrepant linguistic systems (e.g., Spanish allows flexibility in subject-verb-object order while English is rather rigid) are ideally resolved by fully differentiating the two languages. In bilingual acquisition solutions of compromise are only transient intermediate steps. In other words, bicultural adaptation tends toward synthesis and compromise as an end result, bilingual acquisition progresses towards language-system independence —albeit often incomplete. Fourth, immigrants can gain knowledge of target cultural beliefs and values or a positive attitude more easily and quickly than they can gain the experiences that support L2 acquisition and L1 maintenance. Due to globalization and penetration of American mainstream culture in Latin America, many non-immigrant Latin-Americans develop knowledge of American cultural beliefs without ever setting foot on American soil. Fifth, while positive attitudes towards American culture are part of the motivation behind voluntary immigration to the U. S., few adult and adolescent first generation immigrants (including highly motivated ones) become native-like speakers of English. Group analyses show associations among various component bicultural dimensions, but stratification will likely show individual differences, such as a strong monocultural identity with high bilingual competence, or strong bicultural knowledge of cultural beliefs without accompanying bilingual competence.

CLINICAL AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Dual language children often enter school with a wide variability of competences in their L1 and L2, and a large proportion of these children have low competences in one or both languages. However, many are able to meet developmental expectations during the first two years of school. Latino children of immigrants often grow up in linguistic isolation, enter school at a disadvantage, and experience increasing academic achievement gaps and mental health disparities over time. From a developmental perspective we can suggest that supporting the development of both L1 and L2, especially during the transition from home to school is developmentally beneficial.

It is imperative that clinicians and specialists understand the importance of recognizing the wide range of language competences young children of immigrants have in their L1 and L2. By better understanding typical and atypical dual language development we can develop intervention strategies to target language delays as soon as possible while also supporting the development of both languages.

Maintaining (or not) the Two Languages in Children with Language and Other Deficits

Maintaining the first language is important for guaranteeing access to family and community supports and protective factors. There has been a poorly substantiated but unfortunately common practice of recommending to parents that they discontinue exposure to one of the languages (typically the home language) when a child is facing cognitive, language or learning delays, without consideration of the social and family consequences of this recommendation. This practice has little or no empirical support, and some research suggests that children with language impairment can be healthily exposed to and learn two languages 57 , even with benign manifestations of language impairment in both languages. It may be true, nonetheless, that, for individual children with language deficits or disorders, dual language learning, with the additional cognitive and linguistic demands it entails, may become overwhelming. A clinical recommendation to discontinue exposure to one of the languages in children who are struggling with language learning or learning in general, or who express distress or overload on exposure to a language, is a serious decision that should not be made lightly due to its lasting consequences 133 . Such decisions should ideally involve a speech/language pathologist with expertise in assessing dual language children, consultation with the parents and others who know the child well, and an informed decision process by the parents with consideration to the family’s plans for the future 133 . For instance, it may be crucial to maintain Spanish, for a child whose immigrant family maintains firm ties with the home country or older members of the family, or as a way to prevent family distancing due to poor communication 75 . When recommendations are made about abandoning one of the languages, the parents and family linguistic ability should be considered. It is important to maintain the richness of the linguistic environments of the child 79 . Instructing parents to switch to English at home, when this is a language that they do not master, is ill advised and possibly counterproductive in most situations.

Suspecting and Diagnosing Language Disorders in Dual Language Children

Of considerable concern with the large and growing dual language population is how to properly recognize normal and abnormal dual language development. Both the over- as well as the under- diagnosis of language delays of English language learners is a persistent problem 8 , 64 , 112 , 128 . There is a pressing need for standard guidelines in understanding normal and abnormal dual language development when using the current tests and norms recommended for assessing oral language competence 127 . An ongoing problem with the diagnosis of language delays in dual language children is that children’s English competences are often the only language assessed. This renders it impossible to differentiate children who have not yet had the opportunity or the time to learn English (e.g. Spanish dominant) from those that are not making significant gains despite adequate exposure due to impairments in their language acquisition ability. A language disorder should be suspected in a dual language child, when she is reported to be significantly behind in the understanding of both languages, when there has been significant exposure to both languages, and when there are language-based learning problems. While it has been clearly documented that bilingualism does not cause language delay or language disorder 79 , language disorders are certainly possible in bilingual children and such possibility should not be easily dismissed and apparent delays should not instead be misattributed to the child’s bilingual condition. Auditory-verbal working memory deficits associated with ADHD 88 or a language disorder 54 may slow down the acquisition of a second language.

Dual Language Assessment

Dual language assessment is a complex task and some important conceptual and empirical progress has occurred in the last years 12 , 125 , 142 to distinguish between language delays and normal dual language developmental variability 12 , 82 . The field of language pathology has made headway in the area of determining dual language competence 12 , 65 , 127 . While research on the normal dual language development has used normed standardized measures of language competence developed for monolinguals 89 , 92 , 109 , there are no widely-accepted standardized assessments of dual language competence normed exclusively for bilingual children. Instead, parallel measures of language competence available in multiple languages have been used. Dual language children with a regular and rich exposure to both languages exhibit similar developmental patterns and milestones as monolinguals in terms of the order of acquisition of linguistic structures 45 , 55 , 58 , the interpretation of standardized scores of language assessments normed with monolingual populations can be used cautiously as a reference point in the assessment of dual language children and as an indicator of reasonable approximation of age appropriate language competence 127 . Dual language children in the transitional process of language acquisition typically fall short of the monolingual norm 77 , 98 , 138 due to the distributive nature of dual language acquisition (e.g., vocabulary related to school is stronger in English, while that related to home is stronger in Spanish) 90 . Grammatical and other language errors made by a child learning a second language or a second English dialect (such as standard American English) should not be confused with the grammatical or lexical abnormalities of language disorders. Specialized early speech/language assessment in two languages is often necessary to differentiate normal dual language acquisition from language disorder 12 , 85 .

Silent period and Selective Mutism

Children who are suddenly immersed in a second language environment with no knowledge of the language, particularly young children, will normally go through a “nonverbal period” limited to the second language 124 , which should not be confused with selective mutism 134 . While sudden immersion and its nonverbal period can be stressful depending on environmental support and the temperamental characteristics of the child, selective mutism typically lasts longer, appears in both languages and unfamiliar situations, and tends to be disproportionate in relation to the child’s language exposure and competence 134 . The prevalence of selective mutism appears to be, however, higher among immigrant dual language children, and it is thus important that the clinician be familiar with features that differentiate selective mutism from the normal nonverbal period 134 .

Educational Implications

It is important that educational approaches and policies recognize the increasing diversity in today’s schools and establish a connection between home and school by incorporating aspects of the home and community into the curriculum. For dual language children of immigrants, adequately functioning in two languages at home and school may be associated with their wellbeing 30 . Supporting the development of both L1 and L2 at school may prove to be beneficial to children’s linguistic, psychosocial and academic development. Future policy decisions and educational practice should reflect the importance of the development of L1 and L2 competences in multiple domains of children’s well-being and academic progress.

The study of dual language acquisition and how its developmental trajectories impacts the overall wellbeing and mental health of the immigrant child is in its very early stages 1 , requiring further major empirical and theoretical work. Nonetheless, several important implications can be derived from extant developmental and clinical research: (1) Decisions about discontinuing learning or exposure to one of the languages should not be made lightly and should consider the personal and family circumstances of the child. (2) Delays in language acquisition can be formally evaluated, without prematurely dismissing them as “normal” in bilingual children. Assessments are available that allow for evaluation of bilingual children. (3) A complete language assessment will often require testing in both languages. (4) The relatively brief normal nonverbal period in second language acquisition can and should be differentiated form selective mutism. (5) Educational, clinical and family efforts to maintain and support the development of competence in the two languages of the dual language child, may prove rewarding in terms of long term wellbeing and mental health, educational and cognitive benefits. These considerations are critical for clinicians and practitioners working with the most rapidly growing segment of the U. S. child population, dual language children of immigrants.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported primarily by National Institute of Mental Health grant number K01 MH01947-01A2 and by an Early Investigator Grant from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The first author expresses his special gratitude to his mentor, Stuart Hauser, MD, PhD, who provided him with inspiration, insight and support over many years of working together.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Contributor Information

Claudio O. Toppelberg, Project Director, Child Language & Developmental Psychiatry Research Research, Scientist, Judge Baker Children's Center, Director of Psychiatry, Manville School, Judge Baker Children's Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 53 Parker Hill Avenue, Suite 304, Boston, MA 02120-3225, Direct phone line: (617) 278 4268, Direct fax: (617) 278 4102.

Brian A. Collins, Assistant Professor, Hunter College New York, New York, Direct phone line: (617) 290-7029.

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Language families.

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                          Altaic group, one other language family covering anything like the same area, includes Turkish and the Yakut of northern Siberia. Almost all experts include the Mongol and Manchu dialects, but the status of Korean and Japanese is not clear. Some include both the latter languages in the Altaic group: some include only Korean; others group them separately as an unrelated family. .              Altaic Languages, family of languages spoken in a vast area of Eurasia, extending from Turkey in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. Most linguists describe the Altaic family of languages as consisting of three main subfamilies or groups: Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic. Some linguists also include in the Altaic family the Korean language, the Japanese language, and occasionally the Ainu language, spoken by a small number of people in northern Japan.              In the Middle East the principal language family is the Semitic. The largest group included is Arabic that is the liturgical language of Islam. Other Semitic languages are Hebrew and Amharic. The latter is the official language of Ethiopia, spoken by Coptic Christians and Hebrew is basically the language of the Old Testament. Semitic languages take this name from Shem, the second son of Noah. Shem's brother Ham gave his name to the Hamitic languages, which seem to be distantly related to the Semitic. Semitic and Hamitic are grouped together by linguistic in one larger family called Afro-Asiatic.              Semitic Languages, one of the five subfamilies or branches of the Hamito-Semitic or Afro-Asiatic language family. Of the Semitic languages, Arabic was carried beyond its original home in the Arabian Peninsula and spread throughout the Arabian Empire and is spoken across North Africa to the Atlantic coast, and Arabic and Hebrew are used by Muslims and Jews in other parts of the world. The other Semitic languages are centered in a region bounded on the west by Ethiopia and on the north by Syria and extending southeast through Iraq and the Arab Peninsula, with some "islands- of Semitic speech farther east in Iran.

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2. Children Learning a Foreign Language

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3. Language and Communication

Language is created by people. ... A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family. The Indo-European family is the most widely spoken and includes English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan family, which includes Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and many others; the Afro-Asiatic family, which includes Arabic, Amharic, Somali, and Hebrew; the Bantu languages, which include Swahili, Zulu, Shona, and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa; and the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which include Indonesian, ...

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4. Indo- European Language Family

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5. The Need for Language Policy and Planning

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6. Culture and English Language Teaching

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Markdown Cheat Sheet

Headlines # Headline 1 ## Headline 2 ### Headline 3

Styling * italic * ** bold ** ~~ strike through ~~

Links http://url.com [ link text ]( http://www.url.com )

Quotes > Quote text *** Johnny Author ***

Images  *** Image caption, description ***

Horizontal rule ---

Inline Code ` var name = "John Doe"; `

Code block with syntax highlighting ``` codelanguage function foo() {   return bar; } ```

Bulleted list - item 1 - item 2 - item 3

Numbered list 1. item 1 2. item 2 3. item 3

The Indian Language Families

The study of indian languages, their history and evolution has fascinated linguists since ages. here is a brief introduction to the subject., #indianlanguages #learnindianlanguages #indianlanguagefamily.

The word language is derived from the French word Langue and Latin word Lingua both meaning tongue. The word language can still be used interchangeably with tongue- to suggest the spoken medium- but it has now enlarged it's dimension to also include the written means of communication, besides verbal. So, language now stands to denote the acceptable and acknowledged means of communication in words , and in words forming sentences, in both written and spoken format.

Thus, the deceptively simple term ‘Indian language’ is too complicated to be summarized in a few words. It comprises over 122 spoken languages, 19500 dialects, 22 recognised by the Constitution, 2 official, 66 recorded scripts, 14 written scripts, 6 of them having classical status based on their enriched heritage- and so possibly, picking up a single national language was a task best avoided!

The magnitude and diversity of the Indian Language could overwhelm the best linguist.

Which is the best language to learn of the lot? This answer to this might be debatable one, instead, why not admire the variety and richness of Indian Language, to begin with!

What is India's language family?

The set of Indian Languages broadly comes under the following two families:

The two above are grouped together as Indic languages.

Besides, the other Indian languages- albeit spoken by a very minor percentage of the populace- owe their origin to the following families:

• Austroasiatic
• Tibeto-Burman

This is what is India’s language family about.

The origin of Indian language:

How many languages are spoken in India?

With a reasonably big and vast language family, with its civilisation rooted in times immemorial, the acceptance of multiple cultures among the masses, with diverse geography to boast of- it should be anyone’s guess that the number of languages and dialects spoken in India is quite vast. The number of spoken languages in India stands at a staggering -122 (and counting!)

Hindi, of the Indo-Aryan clan, is not only the most widely used in India but also one of the most spoken languages in the world. Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati are not too far behind either.

Sanskrit is recognised and revered as one of the most beautiful and logical languages in the world. Tamil has one of the oldest registered literature and sign of existence.

Could we learn Indian languages online for free?

(image above: screenshot showcasing levels and chapters in language curry app)..

Have we ever familiarized ourselves with an Indian language app? OK, let us stop beating around the bushes: did we hear of ‘Language Curry’?

The ‘Language Curry’ app could be our gateway to learning Indian languages. Let us endeavour to learn Indian Language, and learn Indian languages online free, so let us download and install the ‘Language Curry’ app free from the Google store and familiarize ourselves and learn the Indian language app.

So, why wait?  Having armed ourselves now with the diving gear- the Language Curry app- let us take deep dives into the sea of Indian Language.

We stay in society, we speak and hear,

We travel along- far and near,

We need a medium to pass on the message,

And thus takes the birth of a language.

A country with a vast geographical spread,

With many dialects spoken, and many scripts read,

And a civilization that is rooted in the Bronze age,

All contribute to defining the Indian Language.

The languages are many, its speakers spread wide,

 Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, many more- on one side,

Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada garnish the Dravidian slate,

We are almost ready to serve the Indian Language plate!

 The Indian language is a sea very deep,

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Let’s have ‘Language Curry’ by our side,

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               (Image:showcasing a page from the Sanskrit lesson in the Language Curry App.)

Learning can be fun  learn sanskrit through emojis, are you aware of these  five interesting facts about punjabi language.

Learn: the thirty-two names of Mother Durgā and their meanings

The Thirty-two names of Mother Durgā

श्रीदुर्गा-द्वात्रिंश-नाममाला

Deepawali or Diwali?

It is that time of the year again 🪔

The air is filled with the vibrant spirit of Deepawali. …

Families, Language, and Equal Opportunities: Identifying Good Practices in Family Literacy Projects

• Open access
• Published: 27 March 2023
• Volume 52 , pages 693–703, ( 2024 )

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• Ruth Breeze 1 &
• Ana Halbach   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3172-061X 2  

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It has long been known that children who grow up in situations of economic and social disadvantage tend to have more difficulties when they enter school, and that these are often perpetuated, leading to underachievement and disaffection. The role of the family and home environment in stimulating children’s language acquisition and pre-literacy competences during their earliest years is clearly important. It is possible that with appropriate exposure and encouragement before the age of 3, children from disadvantaged backgrounds could start school on an equal footing with their more privileged counterparts. We provide a conceptual overview of the factors in the home affecting language and subsequent literacy development in children aged 0–3, and a review of programs designed to enhance the home learning environment.

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Introduction

Research over the last fifty years has supported the view that the linguistic interaction at early stages in children’s lives—usually within the family—is extremely important for their language development (Gilkerson et al., 2018 ; Hart & Risley, 1995 , 2003 ), attitudes towards the spoken and written word (Brice-Heath, 1982 ) and future literacy (Dodici et al., 2003 ). The language interaction and literacy practices learned in the home help children not only to build a sound language base, but also to acquire more advanced literacy skills once they start school (Clark, 1976 ; Dicataldo & Roch, 2022 ; Mui & Anderson, 2008 ; Snow, 2014 ). In particular, children who are socialized into participating in rich, frequent, and diverse activities involving oral discourse as well as printed text within the home environment generally have an advantage in the early stages of education, which in turn has been found to favor their later school performance. According to what is sometimes termed the “Matthew effect” (Stanovich, 1986 ; Walberg & Tsai, 1984 ), young children who lag behind their peers in their language development in the earliest stages of schooling are likely to fall further behind as they move up through the educational system.

The underlying factors that might explain the relationship between early language development and educational achievement have been addressed from various perspectives. Recent research relying on neurological and developmental evidence has confirmed that the brain undergoes massive changes in the first three years of life, which constitute the most intense period for language development (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2008 ). Moreover, as theorists on child language development have moved from a predominantly nativist-acquisitionist to a social, neo-Vygotskian model, it has become increasingly clear that children’s mental development is driven by meaningful experiences and supported by social interactions. In metaphorical terms, Sparling ( 2004 ) explains the importance of early literacy experiences from 0 to 3 in terms of “emergent literacy”. In his words, the

moment of recognizing words on the page is no more the start of literacy than the start of a plant is the moment it breaks through the ground (…) the visible plant could not possibly survive and flourish if the underground parts were not a primary part of the plant and had not prepared the way. (p. 45)

The theoretical basis for studies of home language and literacy practices and their bearing on children’s subsequent educational progress thus lies in social constructivist theories of learning that explain how more competent others guide less experienced learners into participating in the cultural practices valued in their communities (Vygotsky, 1978 ; Wertsch, 1998 ). Seen in this way, early language and literacy learning are part of the long socialization process that prepares children for formal education, and the people with whom children have contact are understood to help them, perhaps without any explicit intention, to acquire the necessary skills.

Unfortunately, this socialization process does not seem to develop in the same way for all children, since those from homes with lower socioeconomic status (SES) appear to engage in fewer or less appropriate home literacy practices (Burgess et al., 2002 ), have less access to reading material, and often score lower on measures of language development such as expressive and receptive vocabulary size. Such children are at a disadvantage when entering school, and often continue to underperform during the years that follow (Burris et al., 2019 ). Although some studies have shown considerable variation within lower SES groups (Sperry et al., 2019 ), a strong effect of children’s SES is a permanent finding in large-scale research, for example by that of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2019 ). At the policy level, despite the recognition that families play an important role in children’s language and literacy development, efforts focus on the creation of widely accessible ECEC provisions (Eurydice, 2019 ). Rather than trying to build on families’ capital by identifying good practices in this area and then providing guidance for parents of pre-school children to support them through this stage (Wasik, 2012 ), the idea is that equal opportunities can only be guaranteed through institutionalized care such as in child care or kindergarten settings. This paper takes an alternative view, namely that families can be encouraged to adopt enhanced language practices in the home, leading to better outcomes at age 3. We review recent projects working with parents of children in the 0–3 age group that provide support and guidance for successful language and pre-literacy development. In what follows, we first consider the terminology used, and then explore previous researchers’ findings concerning language and literacy development in home settings.

Terminology

Family literacy.

Two main terms are used to refer to the child’s early literacy-related experiences in the home: “ Family Literacy ” and “ Home Literacy Environment ”. In the North American context, the term “ Family Literacy ” emerged in the 1980s (Taylor, 1983 ) and gathered considerable momentum with the federally-funded Even Start Family Literacy Program, designed to integrate early childhood education within a broad program that also covered adult literacy and parenting instruction (Clymer et al., 2017 ). Subsequent scholars such as Wasik and Herrmann ( 2000 ) narrowed down their view of “ Family Literacy ” to “literacy beliefs and practices among family members and the intergenerational transfer of literacy to children” (p. 3), but still included extended and non-traditional families consisting of people who live together or maintain a constant relationship (p. 6). Confusingly, however, the term “ Family Literacy ” is also sometimes used for institution-based interventional literacy programs for young children in which families play a role, even though families may not be actively involved in the design and implementation of these programs (Hannon & Bird, 2004 ).

Home Literacy Environment

Papers from European countries make greater use of the term “ Home Literacy Environment ”, ostensibly a more inclusive term that could include regular visitors to the home, childminders, neighbors, etc., as well as the extended family itself. Researchers who use this term make no explicit distinction between “family” and “home” literacy: the main goal appears to be to avoid the word “family”, which might have political overtones for some. The term “environment” suggests a more descriptive approach, rather than implying interventional measures. Here, we use both terms with these slightly different meanings.

Aspects of the Home Literacy Environment (HLE)

Most researchers concur that at least three factors are critical in the HLE from 0 to 3, namely parents, parent–child relationships, and the home environment itself. Regarding the first, most attention has centered on mothers, who have traditionally been credited with teaching “the mother tongue” (Mace, 1998 ). The amount of talk mothers direct towards their children and the diversity of their vocabulary have been found to influence children’s language and literacy development (Weizman & Snow, 2001 ). Similarly, mothers with a higher level of education and a more positive attitude to literacy activities have been observed to have children with higher language and literacy skills (Dollaghan et al., 1999 ). Conversely the role of fathers in family literacy development has often been neglected (Timmons, 2008 ), although a few studies analyze fathers’ involvement (Karther, 2002 ). For example, Pancsofar et al. ( 2010 ) found that fathers’ education and vocabulary use were significantly correlated with children’s language development at 15 and 36 months. Other members of the household clearly also have a role, and older siblings prove to be crucial agents in “brokering” language and literacy in the home (Perry, 2009 ), as do grandparents or other older relatives (Hendrix, 2000 ).

Concerning parent–child relationships, Dodici et al. ( 2003 ) found that the quality of parent–child interactions before the age of three was related to early literacy skills. Aspects taken into consideration included not only the child’s own participation, but also the parents’ language, the emotional tone of the interaction, joint attention, parental guidance, and parental responsiveness. Although none of these aspects on its own could be singled out as more important than the others, children from homes with a combination of these had stronger literacy skills when they started kindergarten (Dodici et al., 2003 ). Regarding relationships, Saracho ( 2002 ) also looked at parents’ expectations and interest in ensuring that their children acquire literacy, which may condition their willingness to engage with written material: when older relatives give importance to reading ability, children conclude that this is valuable and strive harder to improve.

Finally, the HLE also has a bearing on the child’s language and literacy development, particularly the availability of picture books (Burris et al., 2019 ) and children’s reading material, and the activities undertaken by family members at home related to literacy learning (Dicataldo & Roch, 2022 ; Snow et al., 1998 ). The age at which children first have any contact with reading material is also thought to be important (Sénéchal, 2012 ; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002 ): early years reading has been found to encourage vocabulary gains that led to greater levels of reading and increased growth in word knowledge (Frumkin, 2013 ). Other factors such as library visits (Sénéchal, 2012 ) or explicit parental literacy teaching (Sénéchal et al., 1998 ) may play a role. According to Saracho ( 2002 ), aspects such as songs, games, etc., encountered by the child in the home, or the linguistic landscapes surrounding the child, may also influence language and literacy development. At the same time, the child’s own characteristics are also important. Not all children, even within one family, will be equally communicative or interested in reading, and their feelings about literacy activities may vary (Frijters et al., 2000 ). As Puglisi et al. ( 2017 ) point out, parents tend to adjust the literacy activities they do with their children as a function of their children’s progress. Such factors affect the dynamics of home literacy activities and necessarily form part of the equation.

Types of Activity

Going more deeply into the HLE, researchers have also considered precisely what types of activity are undertaken in the household setting, and how beneficial these are for learning. This overlaps somewhat with the issue of relationships within the home mentioned above, but it is worth looking at this aspect in more detail in terms of concrete actions. Some previous studies have limited their operationalization of literacy activities to adults reading to children, which appears to be the quintessential home literacy practice. Parents usually use a richer and more complex language in shared reading activities than in other interactions with their children (Sénéchal, 2012 ), while small children also produce richer vocabulary when involved in playful reading activities (Hoff, 2010 ). However, it is clear that not all “reading together” is the same, and that the term “literacy interventions” covers a much broader range of activities than simply reading stories aloud (Anderson et al., 2010 ).

Concerning concrete activity types based on reading, it is important to make sure that they are engaging and enjoyable for children (Saracho, 2002 ). Marulis and Neuman ( 2010 ) explain that “storybook reading”, in which a parent reads to the child, can be complemented by “repeated reading” of the same story, which is beneficial for reinforcing vocabulary, acquiring language structures and developing memory in general. Also useful is “dialogic reading”, in which parents conduct a dialogue with children about the book “questioning, scaffolding dialogue and responses, offering praise (…), giving or extending information, clarifying information, restating information, directing discussion, sharing personal reactions, and relating concepts to life experiences” (DeBruin-Parecki, 2009 , p. 386). Specific reading activities can provide ways for parents to expose the child to a wider range of language (Sénéchal, 2012 ). In psychological terms, parents should interact with children in literacy activities, recognise children’s engagement, and act as role models in showing an interest in books and reading (Hirst et al., 2010 ). In addition to benefiting literacy acquisition as such, literacy-related practices also stimulate children’s emotions and imagination, help them to acquire world knowledge, socialize them into more complex aspects of the culture, and convey values and ideals (Spedding et al., 2007 ). A further effect is to strengthen family relationships and improve communication (Swain et al., 2014 ).

Finally, beyond the world of books and the written word, the HLE also influences children’s language development and oracy skills (Burgess et al., 2002 ). A rich and supportive home environment encourages more rapid and accurate acquisition of new words, greater phonological awareness, and a stronger understanding of the communicative potential of language (Dicataldo & Roch, 2022 ). Increased responsiveness from parents also proves beneficial for children’s language learning (Landry et al., 2017 ), and the number of interactions children engage in with more knowledgeable caretakers has been found to be a central variable in language development (Romeo et al., 2018 ). Speech modeling in terms of both the quantity (e.g., number of words) and the quality (e.g., sentence complexity, lexical diversity) of the language that young children hear provides the foundation for later language and literacy skills (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015 ).

However, as was mentioned earlier, the HLE is shaped by the families’ SES. Yet “the home learning environment is not predetermined; rather, it could be fostered” (Frumkin, 2013 , p. 3). Dicataldo and Roch ( 2022 ), for example, propose that parents should be taught to shift from passive “reading aloud” to “dialogic reading” that involves the child by turning shared reading into a conversation, using various strategies to prompt responses, and encouraging the child to contribute progressively more. Anders et al. ( 2019 ) claims that families can be empowered if they are supported to use appropriate strategies to boost children’s language. In an empirical study along these lines, Landry et al. ( 2017 ) found that parents could change their communication style towards greater responsiveness, and this benefited their children’s learning. Dicataldo and Roch ( 2022 , p. 15) conclude that “parent education is a pathway through which early childhood programs influence child outcomes”. However, at this point we should also note that, as Saracho ( 2002 ) points out, there are serious issues surrounding styles of “literacy training” that attempt to get parents to adopt forms of communication that they would not naturally use, or expect parents to imitate teachers. If parents are to be “trained”, then it is important for those responsible to be sensitive to the parents’ issues or reactions and aware of possible cultural expectations or barriers. Otherwise such programs would have only limited uptake or might prove counterproductive. It is essential to learn from experiences in different settings, in order to envision what might be possible, and where the difficulties might lie.

Research Questions

In the light of this need to learn from existing experiences and in response to the absence of prior studies that bring together and systematize the available information about family literacy projects from 0 to 3, the present study investigates concrete measures that have been taken to support parents in creating a positive home learning environment. More specifically, our research questions were:

Are there any projects that try to improve children’s language development at age 0–3 to create the necessary conditions for children’s subsequent literacy development and academic achievement?

How are these language development projects designed and what good practices can they teach us?

Research Method

To answer the research questions, it was decided to use a systematic methodology, modeled on the methodology used for systematic literature reviews (Macaro, 2019 ). The first step consisted in identifying all the projects that focused on improving children’s language skills as a means to improve future academic achievement through a review of the relevant scientific literature and an Internet search using keywords such as “early literacy”, “language development” or “ family literacy ”. A total of 19 projects were located (see Appendix) and analyzed. This first analysis revealed considerable variability in these projects, some of which were focused exclusively on teacher training or research. The search was therefore narrowed down, and the inclusion criteria were defined as follows:

Projects need to

work with parents

focus on language development

address young children (0–3)

This second round of review left us with six projects that are briefly described below.

Characteristics of Family Literacy Projects

Even though the projects analyzed were selected according to rather specific criteria, they still vary greatly in the way they are organized as well as what they offer. Likewise, the information available online is very varied, sometimes making it difficult to gain a clear picture of the nature of the project. This is further complicated by the fact that some of these projects are rather general, with the specificities of the implementation left to the institutions responsible in the specific context where the project is implemented. What follows is a description that tries to do justice to this complexity in a few words, and this information is further summarized with the help of a table at the end of the section.

Lena Foundation (Language Environment Analysis)

The Lena Foundation, USA, which is the only commercial project described here, offers three programs directed at

Early Years teachers (Lena Grow) through professional training programs

Parents (Lena Start)

Home visitors (Lena Home)

In all three programs the work centers on the evaluation of interactions in the school/home environment, particularly the number of “back-and-forth” interactions with children. These interactions are measured with the help of a “talk pedometer” technology, a recording device that is placed in a pouch on the children’s vest, and data are analyzed by the LENA software to draw a picture of the child’s talk environment. Since we tend to overestimate the number of interactions we engage in (Gilkerson et al., 2017 ), it is important to have an objective measure. The software quantifies the conversational turns between children and caretakers and distinguishes between child, parent and environmental (TV, radio) talk. Based on the outcomes, parents and Early Years teachers are trained in specific strategies to improve the number and quality of interactions.

The resources include an infographic for parents to understand why talk is so important (LENA, n.d.), another one explaining the importance of conversational turns, and 14 talking tips for parents translated into seven languages. For parents, the training “teaches parents brain-building talk skills by leveraging instructional videos, peer-group sharing, printed resources, and self-reflection” (LENA, n.d.). As well as closing the talk-gap and increasing kindergarten readiness, the program claims to help build strong families.

Longitudinal research carried out with 300 children between 0 and 3, and testing them again ten years later, suggests that “the conversational turns experienced early in life were predictive of children’s IQ, verbal comprehension, vocabulary and other language skills in adolescence” (Gilkerson et al., 2018 ). These authors state that the family environment is much more interaction-rich than child-care settings. The ideal number of interactions is 40 per hour.

FRIZ-Frühinterventionszentrum

This center for early intervention in Germany focuses on parents and teachers of children aged 2 + who show delayed language development. It offers therapy for these children, identified through checklists for pediatricians as part of the two-year check-up, and courses for parents of children with language delays, migrant children and children with autism as well as for kindergarten teachers or for professionals who want to become “language mentors”. Some programs lead to officially recognized certification.

Parent training focuses on strategies for shared book reading and the identification of situations that could offer more possibilities for interaction. Parents are asked to videorecord their interactions with their children during free play to identify possibilities for improvement, and are encouraged to adopt some strategies such as getting on the child’s level to enhance communication. Parents whose children have been diagnosed with language delay tend to be concerned about this and need guidance as to how to redress the situation.

The center has created a number of infographics describing the different stages of language development and giving parents ideas for increasing their children’s exposure to language and opportunities for interaction. These infographics are available in 11 languages, thus addressing migrant parents, and are distributed through pediatricians.

The program has undergone extensive research with experimental and control groups; 98% of the participants in the training sessions would recommend them to other parents, and most felt that they were better able to engage in conversation with their children. All children were 2 years at the beginning of the therapy, and at age 2;6 differences between the experimental and control group were already noticeable. At age 3;0, 75% of the children had developed their vocabulary to age-appropriate levels, and at age 4 they had reached the level of normally developing children in grammar. These results were maintained when the children were tested again at age 5 and 7 (Buschmann & Gertje, 2021 ).

The Hanen Centre

This Canadian project offers training and certification for educators as well as courses for parents of children between 0 and 5 identified as having a language delay. The program includes a general course for parents who want to develop skills to promote their children’s language growth (It Takes Two To Talk), and more specific ones for parents of children under 30 months (Target Word) who show language delays, as well as for parents of children on the autism spectrum. The training courses are delivered by Hanen-certified speech pathologists, and include a number of parents’ meetings as well as some appointments with the speech pathologist. In one of these sessions the interaction between parents and child is recorded and then analyzed by the parents and the pathologist for feedback on the interaction.

The impact of these programs has been widely researched and information about the program evaluation is available on the center’s website ( https://www.hanen.org/Home.aspx ). The website also includes some tips for parents to build their interactions with the children as well as some fun activity ideas. The “Book Nook” section offers parents some book recommendations and ideas for reading. Parents can also receive this information as a monthly newsletter through the email.

I Can is a Foundation that offers help for children who experience problems with communicating. They claim that 1 child in 10 (and 1 in 4 in deprived areas) struggles to speak and understand. To support these children they work with parents, the community and schools and nurseries, mostly through direct interventions in schools. The work with parents focuses on parents in areas of disadvantage and is carried out in collaboration with EasyPeasy and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), UK, under the name of “Changing the Conversation”. It is divided into different actions depending on the child’s age:

Babies: Parent Champion session. The focus is on explaining how important it is to use talk right from the start and how important the parents’ role is for their children’s development. Parents come together in playgroups.

Tots Talking: Targeted intervention for parents of two-year-olds to raise their awareness about the importance of their role. It includes practical activities.

They work through “Speech and Language Ambassadors” to reach those who do not easily get involved in such activities. These Ambassadors pass on the “Five Key Message” cards (I Can, n.d.) to family and friends in the community. For multilingual families, the cards have been translated into 10 languages, and there is a special card about “speaking more than one language” (Cambridge Bilingualism Network, et al., n.d.) developed in conjunction with Cambridge University’s Bilingual Network. One of the keys to success is, according to their website, that it is a free program. They also offer an app for parents (Easy Peasy) providing ideas for play with their children. The information about the app is sent by children’s nursery schools so that the source is trusted, and the activities suggested are done in school too, to establish continuation between home and school. Generally, the idea is to include more talk and play opportunities in everyday life. Parents also value the chance to gain more skills and resources to deal with their children generally.

There seems to be some evidence on the effectiveness of the program, but it was not publicly available.

Help My Kid Learn

“ Help My Kid Learn ” is a website developed by the Department of Education and Skills of the Government of Ireland as part of the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011–2020. This Strategy “envisages a central role for parents and communities in supporting and encouraging children and young people to learn to use and understand literacy and numeracy in their lives.” (Department of Education and Skills, n.d.). It defines three actions to support parents and the community:

Supporting a national information campaign to build up awareness of the important role that parents and communities can play in supporting literacy and numeracy learning

Providing better information to parents to enable them to support their children’s language, literacy and numeracy development

Encouraging schools to work closely with parents and to support parents in helping their children’s learning (Department of Education and Skills, n.d.)

The Strategy clearly acknowledges the important role parents play in children’s educational achievement, informing parents about the role they play “using media, online resources and celebrity endorsements.” (Department of Education and Skills, n.d.) A website provides resources for parents about their role in fostering their children’s literacy and numeracy development, and ideas for encouraging the development of these skills according to the children’s age, divided into the skills of talking, playing, reading, writing and counting. The resources include materials from third parties, for example the Zero-to-three Foundation.

In a report about existing literacy programs, NALA, the agency that implements the Strategy, emphasizes that the participation in a family literacy program often leads parents with low levels of education to go back to learning. It mentions that family literacy programs have to adapt to the particular circumstances of the specific community and argues that among the success factors there is strong networking between the program and schools and community services, a small allowance for parents to cover extra costs of participating in the program (e.g., childcare), and the fact that training sessions for parents took place during school hours, when children are not at home.

Vroom, launched by the Bezos Family Foundation, USA, takes evidence from research about the importance of interaction during the first five years of a child’s life, and transforms this into five actions that foster children’s language development, their executive control and the relation between parents and children. The idea is not for parents to have to find time to do new things, but rather to do the things they are already doing differently, so that they have a greater impact on children’s brain development. The five steps Vroom recommends are Look (at what the children are looking at and comment on it), Chat (sing, talk and play), Follow (the child’s lead, as this is the time when the children get engaged most), Take Turns (make your talk, play and exploration interactive) and Stretch (by asking open-ended questions and maintaining the interaction a moment longer than the child would).

Based on these five prompts, Vroom offers print-out tips for activities, an app with 1000 + tips for activities, videos, etc. and a text messenger that sends parents text messages every week. All the tips, independently of their format, are related to the underlying science through an easily understandable explanation (Vroom, n.d.). They also have a Facebook page and a You Tube channel. This is the only program that relies exclusively on providing parents with information and ideas, rather than creating spaces and occasions for exchange and training.

Characteristics of the Reviewed Projects

This paper reviews the six family literacy projects that met our criteria, all of which are contextualized in English-speaking countries (US, Canada, UK and Ireland) and Germany. The absence of comparable programs elsewhere seems to reflect a lack of awareness of the importance of the parents’ role in children’s language development and/or a greater trust in early childhood education centers as the context in which this language development should take place. In fact, as mentioned above, the European Commission, as a driver of educational policies in Europe, does not envisage family literacy initiatives and instead centers its attention on the provision and quality of early childhood education and care.

The programs analyzed all acknowledge the importance of talk for children’s language development and further academic achievement. In line with recent research, the focus is mainly on the number of interactions children are engaged in (Landry et al., 2017 ; Romeo et al., 2018 ). Other elements in communication, such as making eye-contact, following the child’s lead and singing, for example, are therefore also given importance. All the programs are thus based on insights from research on the importance of talk and use these to justify the activities recommended for parents. This is mostly done through infographics that summarize the results of research in easy language, but in the case of the Vroom program the intervention includes an explanation of the effects of the tasks proposed in text messages sent to parents each week.

By extending the focus of the intervention beyond increasing the number of words, the programs also claim to have an impact on strengthening family relationships (see also Swain et al., 2014 ) and helping parents with a lower educational level to return to formal education themselves. The focus of most programs thus moves beyond fostering children’s school readiness and consequent academic achievement to improving family well-being and educational level in general.

A further characteristic that lies at the root of the programs’ success is the fact that they work in collaboration with trusted community members such as nursery schools, pediatricians, or nurses (Anders et al., 2019 ). The fact that the source is trusted makes parents more open to getting involved in such programs. One program (I Can) works with community members as ambassadors who spread the word in the community and encourage other parents to participate. This seems to be a crucial element for success, as this kind of intervention is mostly directed at parents whose low level of education or migrant status pushes them to the fringe of society and often makes them wary of institutions in general, and even more of educational institutions. Given the difficulty of reaching these parents, using trusted intermediaries seems to be an important strategy.

As regards the tools used in the interventions, in most projects this is a combination of parent workshops and some kind of support material that gives parents specific ideas about how to improve talk at home. The parents’ workshops offer training to parents and provide communities where they can exchange experiences, discuss their concerns and generally receive personal support. As for the materials, while in some cases print materials such as fliers are used (e.g., FRIZ, I Can), several projects use digital media (websites, text messages, apps), to share ideas with parents and ensure regular input, so that their efforts to improve their child’s linguistic environment are sustained over time. Most interventions focus these “tips” on different activities such as shared play, singing together or book reading, but also offer more general guidelines for making the most of everyday situations to increase interaction with the children, such as getting on the child’s level, establishing eye contact or following the children’s lead and focusing on what interests them at the time.

Two projects (FRIZ, I Can) acknowledge the special needs of multilingual families, and all coincide in encouraging parents to use their mother tongue with the children, which is particularly important in situations of social disadvantage (Anderson et al., 2017 ; Burris et al., 2019 ). To reach out to families with different languages, some materials are translated into different languages (FRIZ, I Can), particularly print materials. Digital materials are provided in English and Spanish as they are mostly produced for the US, where Spanish is the heritage language for a large proportion of immigrants.

Finally, projects such as Help my kid learn stress the importance of adapting the interventions to the specific characteristics of the context and the target groups. This does not mean that successful programs cannot be transferred to other contexts, but it is a call to ensure projects fit contexts, to improve uptake. One such adaptation, which could be applied in other projects, is the small allowance paid to participants in this project to cover the costs of childminding, for example, so that parents are free to attend workshops and parents’ meetings. No other project analyzed incorporated this feature, but some other solutions were found to allow parents to participate in workshops, such as organizing them at times when children were in school or offering childcare during the parents’ meetings. Except for LENA and the Hanen Center, participation in all the projects is free which, again, is one of the keys to their success. All these factors are crucial to ensure parent participation (Hannon & Bird, 2004 ) and achieve maximum benefit among the disadvantaged groups where such projects are most needed, with a view to working towards greater equity in education for all.

Recommendations

The analysis of the six family literacy projects allows us to recommend good practices for the design of intervention programs intended to improve parents’ strategies to foster their children’s language development:

Base the design of family literacy projects on research findings from the field

Share insights from research with the parents participating in the intervention to make them aware of its importance

Involve trusted community members (nurses, teachers, social workers, etc.) in the project

Involve members of the community the program is aimed at in the design of the program and in making it known

Combine parent workshops with multimedia resources that give parents practical ideas of how to implement what was discussed in the meetings

Stress the value of the heritage language and encourage families with an immigrant background to use their heritage language with their children

Adapt the programs to the particularities of each target group and context

After reviewing the literature, this article analyzes six family literacy projects designed to provide parents and carers with strategies to foster pre-school children’s language development with a view to boosting their subsequent literacy education. All of them are based on insights from research and most have been evaluated with good results that go beyond increasing children’s school readiness to include such aspects as parents’ increased confidence in their role as educators. Given these positive outcomes, it is surprising to find so few initiatives of this kind, and a certain invisibility of the existing initiatives among the European Commission’s attempts to create equal chances for all. The huge potential of families to shape the conditions for their children’s future success and reverse the negative deterministic effects of family background is underexploited: this evidence shows that children from less privileged backgrounds can be given the same opportunities by their parents if they in turn are supported.

Anders, Y., Cadima, J., Ereky-Stevens, K., Cohen, F., Trauernicht, M., & Schünke, J. (2019). Integrative Report on parent and family focused support to increase educational equality. ISOTIS Report . Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5c8ca9574&appId=PPGMS

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Breeze, R., Halbach, A. Families, Language, and Equal Opportunities: Identifying Good Practices in Family Literacy Projects. Early Childhood Educ J 52 , 693–703 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01469-9

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30+ great argumentative essay topics about family with essay prompts, bob cardens.

• July 31, 2022
• Essay Topics and Ideas , Samples

To help you get started with argumentative essay writing, we’ve compiled a list of some potential argumentative Essay Topics About Family. Whether you’re looking for something lighthearted or something a little more serious, we’re sure you’ll find something on this list on Topics About Family with essay prompts

Argumentative Essay Topics About Family with prompts

• My Attitudes Towards Marriage And Family

Essay prompt:  Marriage, also recognized as a wedlock or matrimony to others, is regarded as the bottom-most unit in the social setting community is viewed differently by people.

• Impact of Family-Centered Care on an Autistic Patient

Essay prompt:  According to the Institute of Medicine, patient-centered care is health care that respects and responds to individual patient values, needs, and preferences. On the other hand, family-centered care involves a partnership between a family and a care provider in making health care decisions.

• Family and Friends in Life

Essay prompt:  Everyone comes from a family, which no one chooses at birth. However, individuals are privileged to select people they want to be their friends. Family members and friends are important in life since they enable them to overcome various challenges and find happiness through healthy interactions and social.

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• Family Structures. What is a definition of family?

Essay prompt:  Traditional notions of families have greatly evolved in recent years. What used to be a father, mother and children relationship has changed to accommodate polygamy, adoptive children, and extended family members as one.

• What Does Family Mean To You Essay

Essay prompt:  According to me, family means a lot. A family has different meanings such as by definition, friendship, and convenience. Regarding definition, family involves the people that I am related to by blood. What does family mean to you?

You can also check out  150+ Top-Notch Argumentative Essay Topic Ideas

• Process philosophy and family and marriage

Essay prompt:  In discussing one of these topics, the goal is to relate how a particular political perspective derives from process philosophy (such as socialism). In making the connection, incorporate clear references from the required reading.

• Family System Theory

Essay prompt:  Family system theory primarily emphasis on behavioral exchange at any given instance of interaction with family members. The theory supports that the sequence of the interrelationship between members of the family inspires, maintains and prolongs the problem and non-problematic manners.

• Different Family Structures, Nontraditional Family Structures, and Family Systems Theory

Essay prompt:  Today’s generation seems to have a more complex perspective of the world, but much clearer than before. Having these in mind, people do seem to slowly accept and readapt to these great changes that improve their perception of society today.

Further read on  50+ Top And Best Argumentative Essay Topics

• Ethnography. A Comparison Between Zulu Culture And American Culture.

Essay prompt:  In this analysis you may include a discussion of topics such as: economic/labor role, parenthood, child-rearing, marriage/divorce practices, reproductive issues, sexuality, family/kinship structure, household composition, or other topics that may be relevant in the book you read.

• Causes and Effects of Unemployment on the family

Essay prompt:  One of the most increasing issue in the families has become Unemployment, with Shelter, food and clothing topics being largely highlighted, Unemployment has now become a topic of discussion in the family. It is not only the bread winners that feel the loss of lively hood but also the young professionals …

• Family Resource Management Education Term Paper Essay

Essay prompt:  I decided to work on Family Resource Management. This is a very interesting and sensitive area that I think needs to be emphasized much more than the other FLE areas. This is because the basis of any life existence starts from the family set up.

• Marriage and Roles of Women in the Family Portrayed in Mrs. Mallard’s and Mrs. Pontellier

Essay prompt:  The concept of family has been viewed and analyzed from different perspectives across diverse societies all over the world. Most scholars define a family as an entity to different people, in different localities at different periods.

• The Family Of Man In The Society

Essay prompt:  The modern individual in the society is more aware than before as knowledge has increased and activism has been accepted as one of the ways to solve and express an individual’s opinions and problems.

Find out more on  Argumentative Essay Topics About Social Media [Updated]

• Importance of Family Health and The Strategies for Health Promotion

Essay prompt:  Family is a crucial institution in the healthcare sector. The concept of family health is significant in devising a treatment plan for patients and offering healthcare prescriptions. Is family health important? Consider the various strategies for health promotion . How does a nurse determine which strategy to use on family health promotion?

• Significance of Family values (argumentative Essay Topics About Family)

Essay prompt:  In the past, the family was considered a social unit consisting of one or more parents with their children. Today, the definition of family has changed to encompass various family structures.

• Opinion Writing About Can A Blended Family Be Successful?

Essay prompt:  A blended family can be successful when the parents and the children are able to identify the blind spots and tackle the challenges that may bring disharmony on family unity.

• Basic Techniques of Family Therapy Psychology Essay

Essay prompt:  Family therapy can be carried out in various ways. Moreover, alternatives to every aspect of the process exist. However, some guidelines are shared by all the approaches. They serve as the core framework for clinical practice. Family therapy occurs in stages.

Here are  130 + Best Research Topic About Nursing – Types & How To Choose A Nursing Research Topic

• Difference between Pacific and European Families in Family Structure and Authority

Essay prompt:  Difference between Pacific and European Families in Family Structure and Authority Literature and Language Essay.

• The Greatest Of The Franciscan Values (argumentative Essay Topics About Family)

Essay prompt:  1) Live lovingly. 2) Care for creation. 3) Proclaim joy and hope. 4) Be living instruments of peace to all our brothers and sisters in God’s family.

• Addiction as a product of Social Dislocation and Family Stress.

Essay prompt:  Societal addiction to drug and substance use has, and still is, a menace to our human society, prompting extreme measures to be put in place to not only curb, but also try to eradicate the problem.

Here are additional 60+ Top And Best Argumentative Essay Topics For Different Contexts

• Marriage and Family Counselling

Essay prompt:  Family systems have become more complex over time. Some of the systems that did not exist in the past include gay families, childless families, and single-parent families, among others.

• Family Relations and Child-Rearing Practices: How They Changed Postmigration

Essay prompt:  Migrating to another country or place with a completely different culture affects the whole lives of the family. However, while the most obvious difficulties that they face are those concerning with how they deal with other people, it also affects how each member deal with each other such as how they rear.

• The Form and Function of Family

Essay prompt:  The definition of family is a fundamental aspect of diverse medical disciplines. Since this definition shifts from one nation to another and within the countries due to the current times’ shifting realities, experts have suggested redefining this concept to integrate the diverse modern-day family. What is a definition of family that encompasses the different Family structures prevalent today?

• Cognitive-behavioral Family Therapy and Multi-dimensional Family Therapy

Essay prompt:  Populations at risk are considered the populations exposed to the risk of occurrence of a particular event in life. These populations need to be treated differently from other populations to reduce their risk of falling victim to the described event. (argumentative Essay Topics About Family)

• Importance of Functional Theory in Understanding Families

Essay prompt:  One of the critical topics I studied is the institution of the family. Family is an essential social unit making up the overall society. Family is examinable under various sociological views on contemporary families, including functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches.

• Family: How Has It Been Portrayed Through The Arts And In Real Life?
• Essay prompt:  Reflect on what the word family means and think about how it has been portrayed through the arts and in real life. A family is one of the greatest assets that life gifts each one of us with. It is all we are left with when everything else is gone.
• What Family characteristics may contribute to potential or actual dysfunctional health patterns

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German Essays on My Family: Meine Familie

Learning or Practising German Language? or your tutor asked you to write about your family, or you can say you need to write an essay on My family (Meine Familie) but you have no idea how to do that and where to start?

Well, In this blog post, I have shared some Easy Essays on My Family (Meine Familie) . All the best and keep learning.

Before Start, First we need to discuss some vocabulary related to Family.

The following list includes most of the members of your family tree. Get familiar with these words so you can recognize them:

Read Also: Easy German Essays for Beginners: 8 Examples to Practice Your Language Skills

• der Bruder (dêr brooh -der) ( brother )
• der Cousin (dêr kooh -zen) ( male cousin )
• die Cousine (dee kooh- zeen -e) ( female cousin )
• die Eltern (dee êl -tern) ( parents )
• die Frau (dee frou) ( woman/wife )
• die Geschwister (dee ge- shvis -ter) ( siblings )
• die Großeltern (dee grohs -êl-tern) ( grandparents )
• die Großmutter (dee grohs -moot-er) ( grandmother )
• der Großvater (dêr grohs -fah-ter) ( grandfather )
• der Junge (dêr yoong -e) ( boy )
• die Kinder (dee kin -der) ( children, kids )
• das Mädchen (dâs maid -Hên) ( girl )
• der Mann (dêr mân) ( man/husband )
• die Mutter (dee moot -er) ( mother )
• der Onkel (dêr on -kel) ( uncle )
• die Schwester (dee shvês -ter) ( sister )
• der Sohn (dêr zohn) ( son )
• die Tante (dee tân -te) ( aunt )
• die Tochter (dee toH -ter) ( daughter )
• der Vater (dêr fah -ter) ( father )

Use the following words for the in-laws:

• der Schwager (dêr shvah -ger) ( brother-in-law )
• die Schwägerin (dee shvai -ger-in) ( sister-in-law )
• die Schwiegereltern (dee shvee -ger-êl-tern) ( parents-in-law )
• die Schwiegermutter (dee shvee -ger-moot-er) ( mother-in-law )
• der Schwiegersohn (dêr shvee -ger-zohn) ( son-in-law )
• die Schwiegertochter (dee shvee -ger-toH-ter) ( daughter-in-law )
• der Schwiegervater (dêr shvee -ger-fah-ter) ( father-in-law )

To express the term step-, you use the prefix Stief- with the name of the relative, like in this example: Stiefbruder ( steef- brooh-der) ( step-brother ). The term for a half relative uses the prefix Halb- , so half-sister looks like this: Halbschwester ( hâlp- shvês-ter).

German-speaking children use the following terms to talk about their parents and grandparents:

• die Mama (dee mâ -mâ) ( mom )
• die Mutti (dee moot -ee) ( mommy )
• die Oma (dee oh -mâ) ( grandma )
• der Opa (der oh -pâ) ( grandpa )
• der Papa (dêr pâ -pâ) ( dad )
• der Vati (dêr fâ -tee) ( daddy )

When directly addressing their elders, children leave out the articles dee (dee) ( the ) and der (dêr) ( the ). For example, Mama! Komm her! ( mâ -mâ!! kom hêr!) ( Mom! Come here! )

Read our Complete Vocabulary: Talking about – The Family – in German

Essay One: The Average Family

Meine Familie ist eine kleine Kernfamilie, die zu einer bürgerlichen Familie gehört. Meine Familie besteht aus vier Mitgliedern, einem Vater, einer Mutter, mir und einer kleinen Schwester. Wie andere indische Familien sind wir keine große Familie. Wir leben in Berlin, aber meine Großeltern leben auf dem Land. Zusammen mit meinen Großeltern wird meine Familie eine kleine Familie. Meine Familie ist eine vollständige, positive und glückliche Familie, die mir und meiner Schwester viel Liebe, Wärme und Sicherheit schenkt. Ich fühle mich in meiner Familie so glücklich, dass es auf mich aufpasst und alle meine Bedürfnisse erfüllt. Eine glückliche Familie bietet ihren Mitgliedern die folgenden Vorteile.

Here is what the text is about (this is not a 1-to-1 translation!)

My family is a small nuclear family that belongs to a middle-class family. My family consists of four members, a father, a mother, me and a little sister. Like other Indian families, we are not a big family. We live in Berlin, Germany, but my grandparents live in the countryside. Together with my grandparents, my family becomes a little family together. My family is a complete, positive and happy family, giving me and my sister a lot of love, warmth and security. I feel so happy in my family that it takes care of me and meets all my needs. A happy family offers the following benefits to its members.

Essay Two: The Average Family

If you live with your Mum, Dad, and with your brother or sister. Then use this text to describe your family in your German essay:

Wir sind eine ganz normale Familie. Ich wohne zusammen mit meinen Eltern, meiner kleinen Schwester Lisa und unserer Katze Mick. Meine Großeltern wohnen im gleichen Dorf wie wir. Oma Francis arbeitet noch. Sie ist Krankenschwester. Die Anderen sind schon in Rente. Oma Lydia nimmt sich viel Zeit für mich und geht häufig mit mir Kleider oder Schuhe kaufen. Leider will meine kleine Schwester dann auch immer mit. Mein Vater arbeitet bei einer Bank und fährt am Wochenende gern mit seinem Motorrad. Das findet meine Mutter nicht so gut, da sie meint, dass Motorradfahren so gefährlich ist. Sie sagt, dass ich und meine Schwester auf keinen Fall mitfahren dürfen. Mein Vater versteht das nicht, aber er will sich auch nicht streiten. Nächstes Jahr wollen wir in ein größeres Haus ziehen, weil meine Eltern noch ein Baby bekommen. Ich hoffe, dass wir nicht zu weit weg ziehen, da alle meine Freunde hier in der Nähe wohnen. Meine Tante Clara, die Schwester meiner Mutter, wohnt sogar genau gegenüber. Meine Cousine Barbara kommt deshalb häufig zu Besuch.

We are a very normal family. I live with my parents, my little sister, and our cat Mick. My grandparents live in the same village where we live. Grandma Francis still works. She is a nurse. The others are already retired. Grandma Lydia spends a lot of time with me, and we often go shopping together to look for clothes or shoes. Unfortunately, my little sister wants to come with us as well. My father works in a bank and likes to ride his motorbike on the weekend. My mother does not like that because she thinks it is very dangerous. She says we are never allowed to ride with him on the bike. My father doesn’t understand why, but he doesn’t want to argue with her. Next year, we are going to move into a bigger house because my parents will have another baby. I hope we are not moving too far because all of my friends are here. My aunt Clara even lives opposite to us. Therefore, my cousin Barbara often visits us.

Example Three: A Big Family

If you have a big family, this example may help you with your German essay:

Meine Familie ist sehr groß. Ich habe zwei Schwestern, einen Bruder, drei Tanten, einen Onkel und sechs Cousins. Meine große Schwester hat lange blonde Haare und heißt Laura und eine kleine Schwester heißt Miranda und ist dunkelhaarig. Mein Bruder heißt Fred und trägt eine Brille. Ich verstehe mich gut mit meiner kleinen Schwester und meinem Bruder. Mit meiner großen Schwester streite ich mich oft um den Computer. Mein Vater arbeitet zwar viel, aber am Wochenende hilft er uns immer bei den Hausaufgaben. Meine Mutter backt gerne Torten. Ihre Schokotorten mag ich besonders gerne. In den Ferien besuchen wir häufig meine Großeltern, da sie leider so weit entfernt wohnen. Meine anderen Großeltern, die Eltern meiner Mutter wohnen eine Straße weiter. Das finde ich schön, da wir uns oft sehen können. Außerdem haben sie eine süße Perserkatze, mit der ich immer spiele. Wenn uns meine Cousins besuchen kommen, unternehmen wir meist etwas Besonderes. Letztes Wochenende waren wir alle zusammen im Zoo. Das war lustig, da mein Cousin Ben Angst vor Schlangen hatte. Ich mag meine Familie!

Now, the same story in English:

My family is very big. I have got two sisters, one brother, three aunts, one uncle, and six cousins. My older sister has long blond hair, and her name is Laura. My little sister is called Miranda and has dark hair. My brother’s name is Fred and wears glasses. I get along well with my little sister and my brother. But I argue a lot with my older sister about the computer. Although my father works a lot, he always helps us with homework on the weekend. My mother likes to bake cakes. I especially like her chocolate cake. During the holidays, we often visit my grandparents because they live so far from us. My other grandparents, the parents of my mother, live on the street next to ours. I like that because that way we can see each other a lot. In addition to that, they have a cute Persian cat I always play with. When my cousins visit us, we always do something special together. Last weekend, we went to the zoo together. That was fun because my cousin Ben was afraid of the snake. I like my family!

Read Also:  Learn German Numbers (Deutsche Zählen) and Pronunciation 1 to 999999

Essay Four: A Small Family

If you are living with only one parent, check out this text:

Meine Familie ist sehr klein. Ich lebe zusammen mit meiner Mutter und meinem Bruder. Tanten oder Onkel habe ich nicht. Meinen Vater sehe ich nur in den Sommerferien, da er weit weg wohnt. Meine Oma wohnt gleich nebenan. Sie kūmmert sich nachmittags um mich und meinen Bruder, wenn meine Mutter arbeiten muss. Meine Oma ist schon in Rente. Sie hat frūher mal bei der Post gearbeitet. Mein Opa und meine anderen Großeltern sind leider schon gestorben. Mein Bruder heißt Patrick und ist sehr gut in der Schule. Er ist sehr groß und schlank und hat blonde Locken. Meine Freundin findet ihn sūß. Das verstehe ich gar nicht. Ich mag es aber nicht, wenn er laut Musik hört und es gerade meine Lieblingssendung im Fernsehen gibt. Dafūr geht er immer mit unserem Hund Gassi, so dass ich das nicht tun muss. Ich wūnschte, ich hätte noch eine Schwester, die mir helfen könnte, meine Haare zu frisieren, oder mit der ich die Kleider tauschen könnte. Ich hoffe nur, dass meine Mutter nicht noch mal heiratet.

In English:

My family is very small. I live with my mother and my brother. I have no aunts or uncles. I only see my father during the summer holiday because he lives far away. My grandma lives next door. She looks after me and my brother when my mother has to work. My grandma is already retired. She used to work at a post office. My grandpa and my other grandparents are already dead. My brother’s name is Patrick, and he is doing very well at school. He is very tall and slim and has curly blond hair. My friend thinks he is cute. I cannot understand that at all. But I do not like it when he listens to loud music when my favorite tv show is on. On the other hand, he always walks the dog so that I don’t need to do that. I wish I had a sister who would help me style my hair or who I could swap clothes with. I do hope that my mother is not going to marry again.

Read Also: Easy Sentences you need for Introduce yourself in German

Essay Five: Living with Grandparents

Do you live with your grandparents? Then check out this example if it suits you:

Ich wohne bei meinen Großeltern, da meine Eltern gestorben sind, als ich noch ein Baby war. Wir wohnen in einem großen Haus, und ich habe ein riesiges Zimmer mit meinem eigenen Balkon. Im Sommer mache ich dort immer meine Hausaufgaben. Meine Großeltern sind ganz lieb zu mir. Mein Opa hilft mir immer, mein Fahrrad zu reparieren und meine Oma lädt meine Freunde oft zum Essen ein. Ich habe auch noch einen Onkel, der manchmal am Wochenende vorbeikommt und Architekt ist. Momentan arbeitet er jedoch in Japan für drei Monate. Wir passen solange auf seinen Hund auf, und er hat mir versprochen, mir eine Überraschung aus Japan mitzubringen. Eine Frau hat mein Onkel nicht. Meine Oma sagt immer, er sei mit seiner Arbeit verheiratet. Dann gibt es noch Tante Miriam, die eigentlich keine richtige Tante ist, sondern die beste Freundin meiner Oma. Die beiden kennen sich aber schon so lange, dass sie inzwischen auch zur Familie gehört. Tante Miriam hat viele Enkelkinder und manchmal treffen wir uns alle zusammen im Park. Dann machen wir ein großes Picknick und haben ganz viel Spaß.

And here is what the text is about (Remember, this isn’t a 1-to-1 translation!):

I live with my grandparents because my parents died when I was a baby. We live in a big house, and I have a huge room with my own balcony. In the summertime, I do my homework there. My grandparents are very nice to me. My grandpa always helps me repair my bike, and my grandma often invites my friends for dinner. I also have an uncle who comes around for the weekend from time to time, and he is an architect. At the moment, he is working in Japan for three months, and we are looking after his dog. But he promised me to bring a surprise back from Japan. My uncle has no wife. My grandma always says he is married to his job. Then there is aunt Miriam who is not a real aunt actually but the best friend of my grandma. Since they have known each other for such a long time, she became a member of our family. Aunt Miriam has lots of grandchildren, and sometimes we all meet in the park. Then we have a great picnic and much fun!

If you have any doubt or have some suggestions for us, or even if we missed something to mention in My Family (Meine Familie), Let us know by writing in a comment box. Thanks for reading and sharing with your friends.

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Language Barriers Experienced by Family Immigrants in the USA

Communication plays a significant role in all setups of society, from families to society, at workplaces, and nationally. Communication helps disseminate information to facilitate proper coordination of activities between individuals or between individuals and groups and between groups. Nonetheless, various factors act as barriers that hinder effective communication, including health factors and language indifferences where people speak different languages. Immigrants are among the most affected groups of people in the United States because their inability to speak English could negatively affect how they relate with each other during the transition process since everyone transitions almost simultaneously.

Problem Statement

This research seeks to investigate the language barriers experienced by family immigrants who are transitioning immediately after moving to the united states of America. English is the national language of the country; therefore, immigrants who are not native English speakers or have little knowledge of the English language experience communication difficulties during their transition process. Families are the most affected groups because the transition occurs simultaneously among all the family members.

In the US, the number of immigrant families accounted for 13%; most family types are nuclear families. Most family members who migrate to the united states are nuclear family members because they can easily acquire visas through marital status or parents for spouses and children, respectively. Communication research is the most appropriate solution for this problem because the prevalence of communication problems during the transitioning process is significantly high, as discussed in the literature review section, whereby family relationships are broken. Family members become rebellious, among other issues. Secondly, all family members face these language barriers, from older family members to adolescents and parents.

Research Questions

The language barrier, as the problem faced by most immigrant families, is a communication problem because the language barrier hinders communication. Using the appropriate communication skills could minimize the effect of the language barrier in family setups and help ease tensions at home. This research seeks to answer three questions; the first is about the challenges immigrant families face during the transition period, which includes language barriers that lead to loneliness among older family members and the inability to seek medical attention. The second question is about what both parents and children do to help during the transition period, and the answer is that while at home, family members should use a langue most suitable to all family members. The third question is about the effective communication technique. The answer is that oral communication is the most effective communication technique, whereby most family members communicate verbally through oral communication.

Literature Review

The transition process involves accepting and integrating individuals into a new culture by adapting to the new ways of life in the new country of residence. While this process is smooth for some immigrant families who are native English speakers, that may not be the case for other families from non-native English-speaking countries. Language barrier plays a vital role in communication between individuals; thus, families of non-native English speakers in the United States experience difficulties in their transition processes. In recent years, several studies have focused on the effects of language barriers on family immigrants during the transition process across the different states in the US. These studies have provided possible solutions for addressing these communication problems to help smoothen the transition process. This literature review seeks to evaluate the transitioning process of immigrant families and the effects of the language barriers in the family.

Role of communication

Communication plays an essential role in family lives since it helps family members share important dates in their lives, their needs, basic and secondary, and express their feelings with each other (Cox et al., 2021). Communication enables parents to share their words of wisdom with their children. Communication occurs in different forms, most commonly verbally and non-verbally, and it helps strengthen familial bonds within family setups.

Transitioning process

Language barriers considerably affect familial relationships among families, causing frustrations among parents who may feel their children are drifting away from them when they start adopting new cultural values, including learning new languages (Cox et al .,2021). The most challenging aspect of the language barrier during the transitioning process is the acquisition of depression due to loneliness in the family. The older adults aged 65-99, particularly females, who account for 52% of the population, are affected (Jang & Tang, 2021).

Problems or mistakes reported by family members

The inability to seek medical assistance on time for autism spectrum disorder is prevalent among immigrant parents who prefer getting teacher assistance to doctors (Zeleke et al., 2019) out of fear of the language barrier. According to Gerchow et al. (2021), there are increasingly more poorly recorded medical documents among immigrant patients due to language barriers, thus reporting poor customer services in healthcare facilities. This incorrect information could affect how patients take their medications.

Navigation through this challenge

According to Linton & Green (2019), the language families use in communication, whether as immigrants or not, serves a critical role in maintaining familial bonds; thereby, during the transitioning process, when families are immigrants, they must choose which language to use while communicating at home. Effective communication strategies that can help families navigate through the challenges of the language barrier involve family members can choosing whichever language is preferable for all family members, the native language or the English language spoken in the United States, to minimize the effects of the language barrier since language barriers cause rifts within the family when communication is no longer effective (Cox et al., 2021).

My advice to immigrant families in avoiding language barriers is to refrain from having the following communication behaviors among them not using vocabulary and not forcing a conversation with family members who are not interested in communicating in the English language. Cox et al. (2021) argue that children from immigrant families within the United States have increasingly enrolled in English classes. Thus, they are continuously abandoning their native languages leading to language erosion. While communicating with their parents, these children should avoid using complicated vocabulary to prevent adding to the effects of language barriers in the family, where parents may feel alienated. Instead, they aim to teach their parents the English language and promote better communication.

As children of immigrants continue learning English, they slowly become bilinguals; speaking both languages at home may not go well with all family members, particularly the older generation, who may need clarification on both languages. Thus it would be important for children to use the most suitable language for all family members (Cox et al., 2021).

Regarding the communication behaviors immigrant families should adopt to manage language barriers successfully, is that the parents should make attempts to learn Basic English language so that they may continue communicating with their children but in the new language instead of parents being frustrated with their children’s desire to learn the language (Cox et al., 2021).

Future Directions

The question that still needs to be answered by my topic is how immigrants prepare for the transition before moving to the United States. Among the few shortcomings of the literature review is that it needs to discuss the preparations immigrant families engage in to smoothen their transition process in the United States. The additional advice I would like to give but could not find evidence to support is that family members should use effective communication techniques while communicating with their family members at home. The evidence I would need to collect to test if my additional advice might be effective would be testimonials from immigrant family members who have effectively applied one particular communication technology to control the effects of language barriers at home.

In conclusion, this research was purposeful since it gave crucial insights into the role of communication in families, among the expression of feelings and sharing essential information among family members. The research also outlines the positive effects of effective communication in family setups, such as solidifying familial bonds and maintaining good relationships among family members, and how lack of effective communication in the family could cause loneliness and depression among older members of the family whenever they feel alienated from the rest of the family members. The research established that language barriers are major causes of poor communication among family members. The research was important in providing me with background information which was of great significance in assisting me in advising immigrant families.

Cox, R. B., et al., (2021). Shared Language Erosion: Rethinking Immigrant Family Communication and Impacts on Youth Development. Children (Basel), 8(4), 256. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8040256

Gerchow, L., Burka, L. R., Miner, S., & Squires, A. (2021). Language barriers between nurses and patients: A scoping review. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(3), 534–553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.09.017

Jang, H., & Tang, F. (2021). Loneliness, age at immigration, family relationships, and depression among older immigrants: A moderated relationship. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(6), 1602–1622. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211061279

Linton, J. M., & Green, A. M. (2019). Providing Care for Children in Immigrant Families. Pediatrics, 144(3). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-2077

Zeleke, W.A., Hughes, T.L. & Drozda, N. Disparities in Diagnosis and Service Access for Minority Children with ASD in the United States. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 4320–4331 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04131-9

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The End of Foreign-Language Education

Thanks to AI, people may no longer feel the need to learn a second language.

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

A few days ago, I watched a video of myself talking in perfect Chinese. I’ve been studying the language on and off for only a few years, and I’m far from fluent. But there I was, pronouncing each character flawlessly in the correct tone, just as a native speaker would. Gone were my grammar mistakes and awkward pauses, replaced by a smooth and slightly alien-sounding voice. “My favorite food is sushi,” I said— wo zui xihuan de shiwu shi shousi —with no hint of excitement or joy.

I’d created the video using software from a Los Angeles–based artificial-intelligence start-up called HeyGen. It allows users to generate deepfake videos of real people “saying” almost anything based on a single picture of their face and a script, which is paired with a synthetic voice and can be translated into more than 40 languages. By merely uploading a selfie taken on my iPhone, I was able to glimpse a level of Mandarin fluency that may elude me for the rest of my life.

HeyGen’s visuals are flawed—the way it animates selfies almost reminded me of the animatronics in Disney’s It’s a Small World ride—but its language technology is good enough to make me question whether learning Mandarin is a wasted effort. Neural networks, the machine-learning systems that power generative-AI programs such as ChatGPT, have rapidly improved the quality of automatic translation over the past several years, making even older tools like Google Translate far more accurate.

At the same time, the number of students studying foreign languages in the U.S. and other countries is shrinking. Total enrollment in language courses other than English at American colleges decreased 29.3 percent from 2009 to 2021, according to the latest data from the Modern Language Association, better known as the MLA. In Australia, only 8.6 percent of high-school seniors were studying a foreign language in 2021—a historic low. In South Korea and New Zealand , universities are closing their French, German, and Italian departments. One recent study from the education company EF Education First found that English proficiency is decreasing among young people in some places.

Many factors could help explain the downward trend, including pandemic-related school disruptions, growing isolationism, and funding cuts to humanities programs. But whether the cause of the shift is political, cultural, or some mix of things, it’s clear that people are turning away from language learning just as automatic translation becomes ubiquitous across the internet.

Read: High-school English needed a makeover before ChatGPT

Within a few years, AI translation may become so commonplace and frictionless that billions of people take for granted the fact that the emails they receive, videos they watch, and albums they listen to were originally produced in a language other than their native one. Something enormous will be lost in exchange for that convenience. Studies have suggested that language shapes the way people interpret reality. Learning a different way to speak, read, and write helps people discover new ways to see the world—experts I spoke with likened it to discovering a new way to think. No machine can replace such a profoundly human experience. Yet tech companies are weaving automatic translation into more and more products. As the technology becomes normalized, we may find that we’ve allowed deep human connections to be replaced by communication that’s technically proficient but ultimately hollow.

AI language tools are now in social-media apps, messaging platforms, and streaming sites. Spotify is experimenting with using a voice-generation tool from the ChatGPT maker OpenAI to translate podcasts in the host’s own voice, while Samsung is touting that its new Galaxy S24 smartphone can translate phone calls as they’re occurring . Roblox, meanwhile, claimed last month that its AI translation tool is so fast and accurate , its English-speaking users might not realize that their conversation partner “is actually in Korea.” The technology—which works especially well for “ high-resource languages ” such as English and Chinese, and less so for languages such as Swahili and Urdu—is being used in much more high-stakes situations as well, such as translating the testimony of asylum seekers and firsthand accounts from conflict zones. Musicians are already using it to translate songs , and at least one couple credited it with helping them to fall in love.

One of the most telling use cases comes from a start-up called Jumpspeak, which makes a language-learning app similar to Duolingo and Babbel. Instead of hiring actual bilingual actors, Jumpspeak appears to have used AI-generated “people” reading AI-translated scripts in at least four ads on Instagram and Facebook. At least some of the personas shown in the ads appear to be default characters available on HeyGen’s platform. “I struggled to learn languages my whole life. Then I learned Spanish in six months, I got a job opportunity in France, and I learned French. I learned Mandarin before visiting China,” a synthetic avatar says in one of the ads, while switching between all three languages. Even a language-learning app is surrendering to the allure of AI, at least in its marketing.

Alexandru Voica, a communications professional who works for another video-generating AI service, told me he came across Jumpspeak’s ads while looking for a program to teach his children Romanian, the language spoken by their grandparents. He argued that the ads demonstrated how deepfakes and automated-translation software could be used to mislead or deceive people. “I'm worried that some in the industry are currently in a race to the bottom on AI safety,” he told me in an email. (The ads were taken down after I started reporting this story, but it’s not clear if Meta or Jumpspeak removed them; neither company returned requests for comment. HeyGen also did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its product being used in Jumpspeak’s marketing.)

The world is already seeing how all of this can go wrong. Earlier this month, a far-right conspiracy theorist shared several AI-generated clips on X of Adolf Hitler giving a 1939 speech in English instead of the original German. The videos, which were purportedly produced using software from a company called ElevenLabs, featured a re-creation of Hitler’s own voice. It was a strange experience, hearing Hitler speak in English, and some people left comments suggesting that they found him easy to empathize with: “It sounds like these people cared about their country above all else,” one X user reportedly wrote in response to the videos. ElevenLabs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ( The Atlantic uses ElevenLabs’ AI voice generator to narrate some articles.)

Read: The last frontier of machine translation

Gabriel Nicholas, a research fellow at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, told me that part of the problem with machine-translation programs is that they’re often falsely perceived as being neutral, rather than “bringing their own perspective upon how to move text from one language to another.” The truth is that there is no single right or correct way to transpose a sentence from French to Russian or any other language—it’s an art rather than a science. “Students will ask, ‘How do you say this in Spanish?’ and I’ll say, ‘You just don’t say it the same way in Spanish; the way you would approach it is different,’” Deborah Cohn, a Spanish- and Portuguese-language professor at Indiana University Bloomington who has written about the importance of language learning for bolstering U.S. national security , told me.

I recently came across a beautiful and particularly illustrative example of this fact in an article written by a translator in China named Anne. “Building a ladder between widely different languages, such as Chinese and English, is sometimes as difficult as a doctor building a bridge in a patient's heart,” she wrote. The metaphor initially struck me as slightly odd, but thankfully I wasn’t relying on ChatGPT to translate Anne’s words from their original Mandarin. I was reading a human translation by a professor named Jeffrey Ding, who helpfully noted that Anne may have been referring to a type of heart surgery that has recently become common in China. It's a small detail, but understanding that context brought me much closer to the true meaning of what Anne was trying to say.

Read: The college essay is dead

But most students will likely never achieve anything close to the fluency required to tell whether a translation rings close enough to the original or not. If professors accept that automated technology will far outpace the technical skills of the average Russian or Arabic major, their focus would ideally shift from grammar drills to developing cultural competency , or understanding the beliefs and practices of people from different backgrounds. Instead of cutting language courses in response to AI, schools should “stress more than ever the intercultural components of language learning that tremendously benefit the students taking these classes,” Jen William, the head of the School of Languages and Cultures at Purdue University and a member of the executive committee of the Association of Language Departments, told me.

Paula Krebs, the executive director of the MLA, referenced a beloved 1991 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to make a similar point. In “Darmok,” the crew aboard the starship Enterprise struggles to communicate with aliens living on a planet called El-Adrel IV. They have access to a “universal translator” that allows them to understand the basic syntax and semantics of what the Tamarians are saying, but the greater meaning of their utterances remains a mystery.

It later becomes clear that their language revolves around allegories rooted in the Tamarians’ unique history and practices. Even though Captain Picard was translating all the words they were saying, he “couldn’t understand the metaphors of their culture,” Krebs told me. More than 30 years later, something like a universal translator is now being developed on Earth. But it similarly doesn’t have the power to bridge cultural divides the way that humans can.

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Five Takeaways From Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Essay on the ‘Colorblindness’ Trap

How a 50-year campaign has undermined the progress of the civil rights movement.

By Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at the magazine and the creator of The 1619 Project. She also teaches race and journalism at Howard University.

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in college admissions was not constitutional. After the decision, much of the discussion was about its impact on the complexions of college campuses. But in an essay in The Times Magazine, I argue that we were missing the much bigger and more frightening story: that the death of affirmative action marks the culmination of a radical 50-year strategy to subvert the goal of colorblindness put forth by civil rights activists, by transforming it into a means of undermining racial justice efforts in a way that will threaten our multiracial democracy.

What do I mean by this? Here are the basic points of my essay:

The affirmative-action ruling could bring about sweeping changes across American society.

Conservatives are interpreting the court’s ruling broadly, and since last summer, they have used it to attack racial-justice programs outside the field of higher education. Since the decision, conservative groups have filed and threatened lawsuits against a range of programs that consider race, from diversity fellowships at law firms to maternal-health programs. One such group has even challenged the medical school of Howard University, one of the nation’s pre-eminent historically Black universities. Founded to educate people who had been enslaved, Howard’s mission has been to serve Black Americans who had for generations been systematically excluded from American higher education. These challenges to racial-justice programs will have a lasting impact on the nation’s ability to address the vast disparities that Black people experience.

Conservatives have co-opted the civil rights language of ‘colorblindness.’

In my essay, I demonstrate that these challenges to racial-justice programs often deploy the logic of “colorblindness,” the idea that the Constitution prohibits the use of race to distinguish citizens and that the goal of a diverse, democratic nation should be a society in which race does not determine outcomes for anyone. Civil rights leaders used the idea of colorblindness to challenge racial apartheid laws and policies, but over the last 50 years, conservatives have successfully co-opted both the rhetoric and the legal legacy of the civil rights era not to advance racial progress, but to stall it. And, I’d argue, reverse it.

Though the civil rights movement is celebrated and commemorated as a proud period in American history, it faced an immediate backlash. The progressive activists who advanced civil rights for Black Americans argued that in a society that used race against Black Americans for most of our history, colorblindness is a goal. They believed that achieving colorblindness requires race-conscious policies, such as affirmative action, that worked specifically to help Black people overcome their disadvantages in order to get to a point where race no longer hindered them. Conservatives, however, invoke the idea of colorblindness to make the case that race-conscious programs, even to help those whose race had been used against them for generations, are antithetical to the Constitution. In the affirmative-action decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, embraced this idea of colorblindness, saying: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

The Supreme Court’s decision undermines attempts to eliminate racial inequality that descendants of slavery suffer.

But mandating colorblindness in this way erases the fact that Black Americans still suffer inequality in every measurable aspect of American life — from poverty to access to quality neighborhoods and schools to health outcomes to wealth — and that this inequality stems from centuries of oppressive race-specific laws and policies. This way of thinking about colorblindness has reached its legal apotheosis on the Roberts court, where through rulings on schools and voting the Supreme Court has helped constitutionalize a colorblindness that leaves racial disparities intact while striking down efforts to ameliorate them.

These past decisions have culminated in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which can be seen as the Supreme Court clearing the way to eliminate the last legal tools to try to level the playing field for people who descend from slavery.

Affirmative action should not simply be a tool for diversity but should alleviate the particular conditions of descendants of slavery.

Part of the issue, I argue, is that the purpose of affirmative action got muddled in the 1970s. It was originally designed to reduce the suffering and improve the material conditions of people whose ancestors had been enslaved in this country. But the Supreme Court’s decision in the 1978 Bakke case changed the legally permissible goals of affirmative action, turning it into a generalized diversity program. That has opened the door for conservatives to attack the program for focusing on superficial traits like skin color, rather than addressing affirmative action's original purpose, which was to provide redress for the disadvantages descendants of slavery experienced after generations of oppression and subordination.

Working toward racial justice is not just the moral thing to do, but it is also crucial to our democracy.

When this country finally abolished slavery, it was left with a fundamental question: How does a white-majority nation, which wielded race-conscious policies and laws to enslave and oppress Black people, create a society in which race no longer matters? After the short-lived period of Reconstruction, lawmakers intent on helping those who had been enslaved become full citizens passed a slate of race-conscious laws. Even then, right at the end of slavery, the idea that this nation owed something special to those who had suffered under the singular institution of slavery faced strident opposition, and efforts at redress were killed just 12 years later with Reconstruction’s end. Instead, during the nearly 100-year period known as Jim Crow, descendants of slavery were violently subjected to a dragnet of racist laws that kept them from most opportunities and also prevented America from becoming a true democracy. During the civil rights era, when Black Americans were finally assured full legal rights of citizenship, this question once again presented itself: In order to address the disadvantage Black Americans faced, do we ignore race to eliminate its power, or do we consciously use race to undo its harms? Affirmative action and other racial-justice programs were born of that era, but now, once again, we are in a period of retrenchment and backlash that threatens the stability of our nation. My essay argues that if we are to preserve our multiracial democracy, we must find a way to address our original sin.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times Magazine focusing on racial injustice. Her extensive reporting in both print and radio has earned a Pulitzer Prize, National Magazine Award, Peabody and a Polk Award. More about Nikole Hannah-Jones

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Government of Canada announces funding for Nova Scotia community organization to implement mental health and grief supports for families

From: Public Health Agency of Canada

News release

Today, the Honourable Ya’ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, announced $700,000 in funding for Maggie’s Place: A Resource Centre for Families Association, a community-based organization that has supported families with young children in Nova Scotia’s Cumberland and Colchester Counties for the last thirty years.

April 2, 2024 | Ottawa, Ontario | Public Health Agency of Canada

Psychologically traumatic events like the 2020 mass casualty event in Nova Scotia can have both immediate and lasting consequences for the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. To support those affected on their paths to healing, the Government of Canada is investing in community-based solutions to help increase mental health, grief and bereavement services in Nova Scotia, as recommended by the Mass Casualty Commission.

Today, the Honourable Ya'ara Saks, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, announced $700,000 in funding for Maggie's Place: A Resource Centre for Families Association, a community-based organization that has supported families with young children in Nova Scotia's Cumberland and Colchester Counties for the last thirty years. This funding will help support the delivery of family-centred health promotion programs that address the unique needs of individuals and communities. These programs will include parent support groups, educational workshops and perinatal mental health programs.

The funding for Maggie's Place is part of the $18-million joint investment announced last spring by the Government of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia following recommendations in the final report of the Mass Casualty Commission. The Mass Casualty Commission is an independent public inquiry created to examine the 2020 mass casualty in Nova Scotia and make meaningful recommendations to help keep communities safer. Through this investment, the Government of Canada is also working with the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness and various community partners to support the healing, recovery and resilience of the affected communities.

"The ongoing mental health impacts following the devastating loss of life in Nova Scotia in 2020 cannot be understated. Community-led programs that offer support for grief and bereavement, such as those offered by Maggie's Place, are so important as communities continue to navigate the complexities of grief. These services help foster collective resilience, and represent a step forward in our joint commitment with Nova Scotia to address the recommendations outlined in the Mass Casualty Commission's final report." The Honourable Ya'ara Saks Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health

"Community-based organizations play an important role in supporting the health and wellbeing of Nova Scotians across the province. This funding will help support the work we're doing to advance recommendation C.13 in the MCC final report." The Honourable Brian Comer Nova Scotia Minister of Addictions and Mental Health

"Maggie's Place Family Resource Centre is supporting families in the affected communities as they navigate the challenging journey of grief and loss and provide a compassionate and understanding environment where families can find solace, share experiences, and access resources tailored to their unique needs. By taking a central role in addressing grief and loss, our programs contribute significantly to the overall well-being and healing of our community members." Sarah MacMaster Executive Director, Maggie's Place Family Resource Centre (Cumberland)

Quick facts

The Mass Casualty Commission (MCC) was established in October 2020 as an independent public inquiry with the mandate to examine the April 2020 mass casualty in Portapique, Nova Scotia, and to provide meaningful recommendations to help keep communities safer.

On March 30, 2023, the MCC released its final report, Turning the Tide Together, which included 130 recommendations addressing policing and firearms, community safety and resilience, gender-based and family violence, and mental health.

The federal and provincial governments are working together to address recommendation C.13 in the Mass Casualty Commission's final report, which called for mental health, grief, and bereavement supports in Colchester, Cumberland and Hants counties.

Community-based projects focused on mental health promotion have the potential to improve health outcomes over the life course.

Anyone in Canada can visit Canada.ca/mental-health to access mental health and substance use supports and services, available both where they live and virtually.

Associated links

• Maggie's Place
• Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness
• News Release: Governments of Canada and Nova Scotia announce steps to address recommendations made by the Mass Casualty Commission
• News Release: New Approach for Grief, Bereavement, Emotional Wellness Services
• Turning the Tide Together – Final report of the mass casualty commission, Volume 4, Community
• Anniversary of the Release of the Mass Casualty Commission Final Report
• Statement from Minister LeBlanc on the Government Response to the Final Report from the Mass Casualty Commission

Yuval Daniel Press Secretary Office of the Honourable Ya'ara Saks Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health 819-360-6927

Media Relations Public Health Agency of Canada 613-957-2983 [email protected]

Public Inquiries 613-957-2991 1-866-225-0709

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AI Text + Chat 12+

Gemini, bard, claude powered, curious creators co., designed for ipad.

• 4.7 • 10.6K Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

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Introducing AI+, the ultimate AI chatbot assistant built on OpenAI technology. With AI+, you can quickly access the power of ChatGPT on your phone and get instant help with your work, school, or even personal needs. At work, AI+ has got you covered - whether you need help with email, copywriting, brainstorming, summarizing text, or writing project proposals. For school, AI is your convenient and instant learning assistant. It will act as your tutor or draft essay writer. The app can provide you with expert advice and guidance to help you achieve your academic goals. AI+ is also incredibly fun and useful for your personal life. You can get dating advice, meal plans with shopping lists, or write poems and songs. It will even listen to you and give support without judgment. AI+ is designed to be your go-to assistant for all your needs, no matter how big or small. So why wait? Download AI+ today and experience the power of AI in the palm of your hand. Features: - Conveniently access the power of ChatGPT from your phone - Work help (email, copywriting, brainstorming, summarizing notes, writing project proposals) - School help (essay writer, tutor) - Personal help & fun (dating advice, meal plans, shopping lists, write poems and songs, listen to you and give support without judgment) - Text to voice speech - Easy-to-use chatbot interface Do not enter personal information. May generate offensive or dangerous content. AI+ is not liable for content generated. Terms of Use: https://www.aipluschat.com/terms-of-use Privacy Policy: https://www.aipluschat.com/privacy-policy SUBSCRIPTION PRICING & TERMS AI+ is free to download. - Subscribing to AI+ Unlimited gives you unlimited access to the app - There may be various subscription options and prices available. Check the up to date details in the app before purchasing. - Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of your subscription - Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period - Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period, and at the cost of the chosen package - Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase - No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during active subscription period - Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication - At the end of your subscription, you will be able to keep any content that your received while your subscription was active

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ChatGPT helping students with language deficits

Young students and adult learners who struggle with language deficits find the help they need by using ChatGPT. They are free to write what they want to express using their own language without the handicap of struggling with debilitating issues of their disability. They are able to express their thoughts and ideas and feelings with freedom, dignity, independence and confidence. Their work can be edited by ChatGPT and presented back to them with corrections and suggestions allowing them to make choices and allowing them to be heard as they intended it to be. This is a magnificent tool for anyone with a language deficit disorder, it offers them independence dignity and freedom from the constraints of their disability. Dr. P.

A Disappointing Mac Experience for AI Chat

As an avid user of AI Chat on my iPhone, I was excited to try out the Mac version, hoping for a seamless transition between devices. Unfortunately, my experience with the Mac version has been far from satisfactory. Over the past week, I have encountered numerous frustrating issues while attempting to get the Mac version to function properly. It is disheartening to see that the same results I am used to on my iPhone are not replicated on my Mac. I had hoped that using AI Chat on my Mac would alleviate the constant need for copying and pasting between devices, but it has only added to the inconvenience. I sincerely urge the developers to address the issues with the Mac version promptly. It is crucial to provide a consistent and reliable experience across all devices and platforms. The current state of the Mac version hinders its potential and leaves users like myself feeling disappointed. On a positive note, I must acknowledge the effectiveness and efficiency of AI Chat on the iPhone. Its functionality and convenience have greatly enhanced my productivity. The ability to copy and paste my review from the iPhone app for this very review is a testament to its usefulness. In conclusion, while AI Chat remains a valuable app on the iPhone, the Mac version requires significant improvements. I hope that the developers take immediate action to fix the issues and provide Mac users with the seamless experience they deserve.

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Judge expands partial gag order after Trump's attacks on his daughter in hush money case

The judge presiding over Donald Trump 's impending New York criminal trial expanded a partial gag order Monday night following the former president's online attacks against his daughter.

State Judge Juan Merchan said Trump is barred from attacking his family members and those of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in addition to the witnesses, prosecutors, court staff members and their relatives whom he was directed to "refrain" from talking about in a previous gag order issued last week.

Trump's "pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are 'fair game' for Defendant's vitriol," Merchan said Monday. "It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real."

Trump's actions, he wrote, could have a chilling effect on a case that's just two weeks from the trial start date.

"The average observer must now, after hearing Defendant's recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well . Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself," Merchan wrote.

Lawyers for Trump had argued in a filing Monday that his repeated attacks on Merchan's daughter were protected political speech, while Manhattan prosecutors urged Merchan to crack down on Trump’s escalating rhetoric.

Bragg's office contended Trump's bashing of Merchan's daughter on social media "fundamentally threatens the integrity of these proceedings and is intended to intimidate witnesses and trial participants alike."

The Trump attorneys' filing said Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, was not trying to interfere with the trial or "cause harm to anyone" but suggested he was, indeed, trying to pressure the judge.

"President Trump’s comments concerning Your Honor’s daughter are, properly understood, a criticism of the Court’s prior decision not to recuse itself," the filing said. Trump asked Merchan last year to step down from the case.

"President Trump’s social media posts amplified defense arguments regarding the need for recusal that have been, and will continue to be, the subject of motion practice," the filing added.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung argued in a statement before the ruling Monday night that Merchan has a "clear conflict" because of his daughter and "should do the right thing and immediately recuse himself."

Merchan's decision in August refusing to step aside noted that he had sought guidance from the state courts system’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics over his daughter's employment. The committee found the DA's case “does not involve either the judge’s relative or the relative’s business, whether directly or indirectly. They are not parties or likely witnesses in the matter, and none of the parties or counsel before the judge are clients in the business. We see nothing in the inquiry to suggest that the outcome of the case could have any effect on the judge’s relative, the relative’s business, or any of their interests.”

Merchan’s daughter has worked as president of Authentic Campaigns, a firm  Vice President Kamala Harris used for digital fundraising  and advertising during her presidential campaign. The firm describes itself as “a digital agency progressives can trust to get the job done right.”

Bragg's office contended that Trump's "claim of a constitutional right to levy personal attacks on family members is as disturbing as it is wrong."

"This issue is not complicated. Family members of trial participants must be strictly off-limits. Defendant’s insistence to the contrary bespeaks a dangerous sense of entitlement to instigate fear and even physical harm to the loved ones of those he sees in the courtroom," the DA's filing said.

Merchan slapped Trump with a partial gag order last week barring him from trashing witnesses, court staff members and their families. The order did not mention Merchan or his family.

Trump has since repeatedly taken shots online at Merchan and his daughter .

“Maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump,’” one of Trump's posts on Truth Social said. He used her name in a separate post, and another linked to an article with pictures of the daughter.

Another post accused the daughter of using a picture of Trump behind bars as her profile picture on an X account that Al Baker, a spokesperson for the state Office of Court Administration, said was n ot actually hers . Baker recently said that someone apparently re-created a version of the woman's shuttered account last year, which he called the “manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned.”

The DA's office said in Monday's filing that Trump's attacks were based on "transparent falsehoods" but that "the facts are beside the point for this defendant."

"There is no constitutional right to target the family of this Court, let alone on the blatant falsehoods that have served as the flimsiest pretexts for defendant’s attacks. Defendant knows what he is doing, and everyone else does too," Bragg's office contended.

Prosecutors asked Merchan to clarify that the order does extend to his daughter and said he should expand it if it does not. They also urged him to warn Trump that "any statutory right he may have to access juror names will be forfeited by continued harassing or disruptive conduct." The DA's office previously contended that Merchan could find Trump in criminal contempt for willful disobedience of a court order, which can include a penalty of up to 30 days imprisonment, if he “continues to disregard such orders."

Trump's attorneys said in their filing that Merchan should not expand the gag order, which they called "an unlawful prior restraint that improperly restricts campaign advocacy by the presumptive Republican nominee and leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election."

The filing did not acknowledge the apparent social media hoax involving Merchan's daughter; instead, it blasted Merchan for Baker's statement, suggesting that it was inappropriate and tantamount to Merchan's having "weighed in."

In his ruling, Merchan found Trump's arguments were "at best strained and at worst baseless misrepresentations which are uncorroborated and rely upon innuendo and exaggeration."

"Put mildly, the assortment of allegations presented as 'facts' and cobbled together, result in accusations that are disingenuous and not rational. To argue that the most recent attacks, which included photographs, were 'necessary and appropriate in the current environment,' is farcical," he wrote.

Merchan issued the warning about jurors' names and also said "that any violation of this Order will result in sanctions" in the criminal contempt statutes cited by the DA.

Trump’s attorneys faulted Merchan for speaking to The Associated Press for a profile the news service published last month, saying he violated the state code of judicial conduct by commenting on the case. "According to reports of the interview, Your Honor indicated that the Court 'wouldn’t talk about the case,' but did so anyway," the filing said, pointing to his remarks that “‘There’s no agenda here. ... We want to follow the law. We want justice to be done.’”

It also complained that Merchan participated in the interview while Trump was waiting to hear whether he would allow him to file a motion to delay the trial because of pretrial publicity.

That filing was made public Monday. In it, Trump's lawyers argued that the "exceptionally prejudicial pretrial publicity, which is substantial, ongoing, and likely to increase," will prevent him from getting a fair trial in the case, which alleges that he falsified business records related to a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies.

The filing says both Cohen and Daniels have contributed to the prejudicial publicity by repeatedly criticizing Trump in often graphic terms, even though the DA's office has asked them not to speak about the case. Trump is seeking an indefinite adjournment of the trial “until prejudicial press coverage abates.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.

Lisa Rubin is an MSNBC legal correspondent and a former litigator.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.