Every 21 February is International Mother Language Day, adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999. It is the first language a person learns. The language acquired naturally without pedagogical intervention, by simple contact with its oral form already in the mother's womb.
The importance of the mother tongue lies not only in the simple fact of knowing and being able to interact in that language. Beyond that, it is a unique way of interpreting reality, a cultural asset that also shapes a person's identity, through structures, vocabulary and the collective imagination. A rich tapestry that lives on in everyone as part of their cultural and intellectual heritage.
Thus, when people are deprived of their mother tongue, they also lose possibilities, traditions, memories, unique modes of thought and expression, valuable and necessary resources for their present and future.
But sometimes circumstances force us to move away from what is rightfully ours. This is the case of thousands of children of migrant parents who, in their day-to-day lives, get by in a language other than their mother tongue. Another way of understanding the world, perhaps, which has been ingrained in their lives since childhood, forming part of their cultural richness.
From an educational and intellectual development point of view, multilingualism has many advantages, not only in terms of cognitive development, but also in the long term, for example, in terms of finding a better-paid job. In these cases, being forced to work in another language is not a negative factor. On the contrary, it can be a great advantage, especially for languages that are not included in public school bilingualism programmes.
However, perhaps as another way of integrating into the host society, many migrant parents are not aware of this advantage and prefer to speak to their children in the host language rather than in their mother tongue. In other cases, they only practise the oral form with their children, without paying attention to reading and writing.
These children are deprived of learning their parents' language, at least in its written form, and therefore of the resources it can offer them. At the same time, there is a rupture with their roots, their heritage, which is difficult to solve in adulthood. Or as the Viennese philosopher, mathematician and linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein put it, "the limits of my language are the limits of my world".
Beyond the individual loss, more current research argues that society as a whole suffers from this loss. As Fabio Scetti, a sociolinguist and researcher at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, puts it, "the way in which migrant families do or do not preserve their mother tongue over the generations has important repercussions on the social fabric of a country". It is yet another form of cultural impoverishment of society, for as UNESCO itself proclaims, differences in cultures and languages foster a more tolerant and respectful society.
In order to alleviate this situation, in September 2017, the Fundación Tres Culturas launched the project Learning as a family. A linguistic programme that promotes the learning of Spanish among Moroccans living in Andalusia and, at the same time, the learning of classical Arabic among their children, born here or who came here very young, so that they do not lose the link with their parents' country of origin.
As part of the awareness-raising activities developed by Tres Culturas through the Alqantara programme (funded by the Ministry in charge of Moroccans living abroad and migration issues), these free classes are held twice a week for two hours. They work on language learning in a global way, taking into account the skills of oral and written expression, listening and reading comprehension, audio-visual comprehension and oral interaction.
In 2017, the project was launched in two centres, and after seeing its benefits and acceptance, it has been expanded to offer this service to more families. Currently Learning as a family is being taught in four different locations: two civic centres in Seville capital, in the neighbourhoods of La Macarena and Polígono Sur, another in the town of Olivares and a fourth in Cartaya, Huelva, with more than ninety students.
From its beginnings, Learning as a family has benefited more than a hundred children who, week after week, are acquiring the knowledge and reinforcement necessary to value their roots through the learning of their language and culture of origin, in this case Arabic and Moroccan culture.
"My children used to go on holidays to Morocco and found that they couldn't read the signs in the street and didn't understand what their grandparents or uncles were telling them. Now that doesn't happen anymore. Although the younger one still can't read well, the older one is recognising and is very happy," explains Boushra, mother of two pupils in the Macarena group.
Some children come reluctantly, their teacher tells us, still unaware of the gift they are receiving. "If you give them a choice between an extracurricular activity like football and coming to Arabic, they prefer sport. But the value of knowing their mother tongue will be priceless in the future.
Kenza, one of the teachers of the children's groups, explains the difficulty of learning Arabic, especially writing. "They use the Spanish alphabet in their schools. Arabic is very different and has many more sounds, some of them very complicated. But although it is difficult, they pick it up very quickly. Especially in the older ones, who have been learning for at least two years, you can see a lot of progress.
In the classrooms of Learning as a family the standardised variety used in contemporary media and literature is taught. Standard Arabic is a direct descendant of Classical Arabic, preserving its morphology and syntax and incorporating modern lexical and stylistic features to suit today's needs.
A further complication is the fact that families tend to practice a dialectal variety, the dariya or Maghrebi Arabic. A term covering the varieties of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya.
In the classrooms, the little pupils seem indifferent to the complications of the new language, repeating the alphabet in chorus, then taking turns explaining to their teacher how to spell each letter:
-That one's wearing the little hat!
-And that's the little dot at the bottom!
None of them seem very aware of what they are unwittingly acquiring: the intangible treasure of their parents' culture, which, like the meals they enjoy on holidays, or the stories their grandparents tell them, will live on in them and be reflected in a more pluralistic and sustainable society.