Since my wife is Zimbabwean Ndebele (a "clicking language") and speaks a variant of Zulu, part of the South African Bantu Langauges, as well as French, and I have dabbled in Spanish, Ethiopian Amharic and the tiniest smidges of Hindi and Arabic, I've always expected to raise our kids multilingual.  At the LEAST I'd like them to be involved in an immersion school, and ideally I'd like my wife to speak Ndebele to them while they are young.  Some folks poo-poo the idea, figuring What's the use? 

I've asked a number of multilingual friends how they raised their little polyglots and I got the largest (and certainly best thought out) response from my friend Milind Pandit.  So, with his permission I've posted "Milind Pandit's FAQ About Raising Multilingual Children."   It's very well thought out, and certainly pertinent considering that hispanics now outnumber Blacks as the largest minority, the frequency of interracial and intercultural marriages is exploding, and people are starting to realize that being mono-lingual just doesn't cut it any more.

Here's an interesting problem I think I'm faced with.  A buddy of mine who owns a fantastic Ethiopian Restaurant here in Portland, OR is having a Jazz Dinner event.  I was going to post a note about it in my blog, but then I realized, that if I post a note about this single event, with the way that google and blogs work that my blog could theorectically (and easily) find itself HIGHER than my buddy in a Google Search for my buddies restaurant!  I know we've all been surprised to find ourselves high in Google for some queries...and certainly some larger companies have been "hurt" by bloggers saying "Company X sucks" in their blogs enough time that Google believes it's true?

Am I right, and can I indirectly hurt someone's smaller site by mentioning it here?

"The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work."