My nephew, who’s 4 is growing up in a bi-lingual household. And I have been watching him for a while now: he has this notion in his head that he has to speak Konkani to certain people, and English to others. For instance, with my dad (his granddad), he’ll only speak in Konkani, even if my dad says something in English. With me, he’ll only speak in English, even if I reply back in Konkani.
The other thing I’ve noticed is how he mixes up languages. At first he was just mixing up nouns. So, if a sentence was spoken mostly in English, the nouns in it would be in Konkani (or vice versa). Now, he’s starting to construct gerunds in Konkani (which does not have gerunds) to great hilarity by all.
An example of the first one: instead of “The spoon is on the table”, he’ll say “the culer is on the mesa”. And of the second one, “I am vaching the paper” (for I’m reading the paper).
His brother, who is two speaks mostly in English, and responds to Konkani. It’ll be fun to see how he develops.
