One hit I've heard international adoption take more than once involves the usually inevitable consequence of moving a child from one country to another that means a loss of access for the child to the language of his birth family, country and culture.

It's a common theme on adult adoptee boards, and there is no shortage of resentment over the fact that a visit to a birth country is complicated by an inability to communicate in the native language.

Language is one of the great treasures of culture and a tie that can bind people together even more strongly than shared history, common preferences in food or physical similarities. Enjoying a meal of regional specialties is one thing, but being able to discuss what makes each dish remarkable makes such an event bonding.

It is all well and good that adoptive parents of children born in other countries take steps to bridge language gaps, and learning a few words of Spanish or Khmer seems the least effort that can be made. Enrolling kids in Mandarin courses and conversational Spanish goes an extra mile or more toward helping our kids integrate a significant part of who they were born to be into who they are and will be.

It must be said, though, that it is simplistic to assume that a knowledge of Mandarin would have been part of a Chinese-born child's resumé or that a child would ever have taken part in a conversation in Spanish had they lived their entire lives in Guatemala.

As the world gets smaller, many of the marginalized groups our children come from are losing more and more of what sets them apart and what makes them unique. (Although international adoption may appear to contribute to this since numbers are reduced through the process, it is actually an effect, not a cause.)

Like building styles, hunting techniques, cultural wisdom and such, It is likely that the home language of some of our kids will have died out completely before they would ever have a chance to even hear it spoken.

Continued in the next post.

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