All Rejoice and Celebrate Bilingualism! The May Carnival is here

Today I'm delighted to host the May Carnival of all things bilingual in the blogosphere. It warms my heart to see the community of bilingual bloggers growing and more and more bloggers joining in and exchanging their first hand experiences of bilingual (or multilingual) living. Nothing beats following the developing bilingual minds in so many different language settings, and to get a few tips here and there on what works and what doesn't, and how to make this long and exciting journey a successful, and above all, fun one.

So, without much further ado, here is this month's carnival menu:

Starter:
There are sunny Arabic spells in the house of Babelkid, with much rejoicing at the breakfast table after a house move.

Quite au contrario to Babelkid's all Arabic surprise, Multilingual Mama asks the question Do you Franglais? when she considers what code switching means to her. Franglais , Spanglish or Denglish - it's all rather complicated when, how and why we mix languages and what it all means.


Mains: Words and Numbers
Fiona of Living in the Land of Chocolate has to give her children the run down of bad words when they come home from Kindergarten having read a certain inappropriate English swear word. In Switzerland!

18 months old Aleksander is starting out with his very first words in the trilingual home of German in the Afternoon - but he's not one to do a song and dance when pushed!

Spanglish Baby looks at the 5 biggest obstacles when raising bilingual children. They are based on a facebook question and responses by parents and I'm sure there's nobody who can't relate to at least one of these barriers and benefit from this post's tips how to overcome them.


Busy as a Bee in Paris shares 4 guidelines for immersing your child in a new language - a great checklist to see if you're doing it right or if there is some room for improvement.

On my own blog, I compiled 10 random reasons for embarking on a bilingual journey; for the benefit of the undecided, the wavering, and the unsure. Of course there are many more and you can still add your own favourites!

Dessert: A bit of past, present and future


Intrepidly Bilingual tells the story of how they became an OPOL family. Or an almost OPOL family who then decided to become a slightly stricter OPOL family thanks to the trials and tribulations of the one parent one language method. It's a story that I'm sure many can relate to - as for us, we've so been there!

Crankymonkeys in London finds that she's still no diamond when she ponders what living with her Estonian mother means to her, though it does heaps for her children's Estonian!

For now, there won't be any French classes at the maison, as Bringing up Baby Bilingual concludes. Being 7 months pregnant is not quite conducive to a big push for setting up immersion classes for other little French speakers in your neighbourhood! But there's always another time, a better time to make a great idea happen.

And with coffee: some philosophical thoughts and how to introduce a different culture to any child

Alexandra's guest post on Bilingue per Gioco on Homelessness of a Third Culture Kid gives an insight into what it is like to grow up between cultures and languages, what it means to the child and how we, as parents, can better empathise and support our children.

Chasing my Rainbow Baby has become an anthropologist in her own home and is all ready for some field work.

Mamapoekie of Authentic Parenting gives great ideas on how to introduce African culture to children in Children's Guide to African Culture. Bilingual or not, children are keen to learn about other cultures, and even if you can't raise your children bilingually, Mamapoekies has great tips how to familiarise children with another, in her case, African culture.

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If you are interested in keeping in touch with all things bilingual, head over to the Bilingual Blogging Carnival Page where you can sign up for the newsletter, read all the bilingual carnivals to date, find details on how to submit your post to the next host or offer to host the carnival in the future. I hope you enjoyed this month's carnival and see you at Bilingual Russian next month!