My Afrikaans is fading and I can feel it. I wasn’t able to find the Afrikaans word for grape a few minutes back and, although I got it eventually, I was never supposed to struggle with it to begin with. I’ve tried countless times to become brave enough to speak it in our house, but a combination of self-consciousness and embarrassment makes it hard for me. Not embarrassed about my language. Not quite sure what it is. Struggling to teach my daughter Afrikaans too.
I’m very discouraged at this point. I don’t want to lose my mother tongue, but I don’t know how to manage it in a country that has only a few hundred speakers.