When husband and wife speak different Indian languages

Rihana · Sep 16, 2012

In the past 2 decades it has become more common to marry a person from another state, and who speaks a different language (mother-tongue).

When husband and wife come from families that speak different languages, and only common language is English or another third Indian language, what is the long term impact on the married life?

Do you think language does not matter as long as they communicate well? The language of love is universal? A mutual respect and understanding is more important than having the same mother-tongue?

Or, do you think, not being able to speak to spouse in one's mother-tongue puts a certain distance between them?

Thread is only about impact of husband & wife speaking different languages on the husband-wife relationship (let's leave children, in-laws, siblings etc out of discussion).

Rihana · Sep 16, 2012

I think mutual respect, caring & understanding is way more important than both having the same mother-tongue.

But, if a person is very interested in literature, poetry and philosophy written in his/her mother-tongue, then not being able to discuss that with spouse can put a bit of a damper, though they might have much else in common to make up.

anmolhai · Sep 16, 2012

I think A mutual respect & understanding is more important. Speaking different languages will bring some challenges but show me one marriage where there are no challenges . have you watched movie Ek duje ke leya

rose8282 · Sep 16, 2012

Personally I would not marry one with a different mother tongue. I speak Hindi,English fluently but the comfort level of speaking own mother tongue after coming back home is something else. There is some funny slang in my language and comedy pieces in regional movies which I would love to share. I would def feel something is missing in my life if my routine of 23-25 years is suddenly changed. I dont believe in all this love and people doing anything for the one's they love. Its good to read,hear and see, but when it comes to practising it lifelong...I cannot do it.

Ragini25 · Sep 16, 2012

rose8282 said: ↑

Personally I would not marry one with a different mother tongue. I speak Hindi,English fluently but the comfort level of speaking own mother tongue after coming back home is something else. There is some funny slang in my language and comedy pieces in regional movies which I would love to share. I would def feel something is missing in my life if my routine of 23-25 years is suddenly changed. I dont believe in all this love and people doing anything for the one's they love. Its good to read,hear and see, but when it comes to practising it lifelong...I cannot do it.
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When i saw ur name, i thought u may say this
Ur more of a comfort-zone, safety-in-known-things person with respect to similar backgrounds. Absolutely nothing wrong with your approach, just brought a smile to my face since i predicted it

I agree about sharing the funny slang with hubby. Very good point.

fencesitter · Sep 16, 2012

one of my ex girl friend was from a different state. Not just our language, so many things were different. its difficult.

abc00 · Sep 16, 2012

We are one classic example of Ek duje ke liye couple. I can say my life started only after I met hubby. We met in college and almost grew up together. We understand each other so well. We have different mother tongue but we both speak different Indian language (the first language which we started speaking at college when we met). We dated for 10 years before marriage and its 14yrs of marriage now ( n have a teen kid !). Language has never come in between our love. We both do not care about it much. We both understand each other's mother tongue too and hence do not miss any 'punch' dialogues or comedy scenes too. In my case, I had hardships at parents home though all of us spoke in one common language.It was most of the time fights in our sweet mother tongue. So the basis of a good relationship was/is never a language for me. Love speaks volumes for us. We laugh and cry in our common 'love' language.

freddycat · Sep 16, 2012

Rihana,

We don't have to speak different language to miss each other :rotfl :rotfl, it is already built-in coming from different family background!

I came from women dominated house and, my DH lived by himself, nearly a decade. It was only 'me' in DH's language at the beginning and it took him awhile to understand, the 'us' factor in marriage. :biglaugh

BTW, with my son born/raised in abroad, English slowly found it's way at home. It is already a bilingual home....I would say, 75% English at home. I didn't realize that until my family pointed that when we visit back home.

menong · Sep 16, 2012

Ok... this response is from someone who is travelling in the above mentioned boat.... we speak different languages ( me malayalam- he telugu) n born and brought up in respective states too. N i guess we have been togethr long enough to speak of a long term impact ( close to a decade). the answer is zilch... no impact.... I still cant speak a sentene of Telugu and neither can he speak a sentence of Malayalam... but it does not matter... we speak English at home with a smattering of Hindi , Tamil, Malayalam and telugu at times and touch wood to date we never had felt that we are trying to communicate something the other doesn't understand. And i guess, it all boils down to mutual respect and understanding the other