u/AulakhSimran

I've been posting here about building Alfaazo, a Punjabi learning app. Most of the people who reach out are diaspora Punjabis trying to reconnect with the language. That's who I built it for.

Then this week someone commented who I completely didn't expect.

A Chinese woman living in the UK. Her partner is Punjabi, grew up in Hong Kong, speaks mostly Cantonese and English. His dadi speaks Punjabi. And this woman is quietly teaching herself Punjabi so that one day she can have a real conversation with his dadi.

Not because anyone asked her to. Just because she loves him and wants to reach the people he came from.

She also mentioned her partner doesn't really speak much Punjabi himself, not out of shame but because Hong Kong gave him a completely different world to grow up in. So in their house right now a Chinese woman is closer to his grandmother's language than he is.

I've spent months thinking about who Alfaazo is for. Heritage learners, diaspora kids, people who grew up hearing it but never learned it properly.

I hadn't thought about people like her. Learning a language purely out of love for someone else.

Maybe that's how a language really survives through. What do you think?

ਦੱਸੋ ਜ਼ਰੂਰ 🙏

Last month I posted asking about the future of the Punjabi language — whether it would survive another generation.

I expected responses from Punjabis. People who grew up with it, who have skin in the game.

The comment that stuck with me most came from someone who described herself as "just a white girl from western Canada." She's learning Punjabi because her friends came from Punjab and she wanted to understand their world. She said a language only stays alive if people are proud enough to teach it — and that too many parents are quietly letting it die because they want their kids to fit in.

She's learning Punjabi, French, Spanish and Dutch. Not because she has to. Because she loves the people those languages belong to.

Meanwhile there are second and third generation Punjabis who can't hold a basic conversation with their own grandparents.

I don't say that to shame anyone — I've been that person. But something about a complete outsider caring more about preserving our language than some of us do hit differently.

What do you think is the real reason Punjabis abroad stop passing the language down? Is it shame? Practicality? Just life getting in the way?

Last month I posted asking about the future of the Punjabi language — whether it would survive another generation.

I expected responses from Punjabis. People who grew up with it, who have skin in the game.

The comment that stuck with me most came from someone who described herself as "just a white girl from western Canada." She's learning Punjabi because her friends came from Punjab and she wanted to understand their world. She said a language only stays alive if people are proud enough to teach it — and that too many parents are quietly letting it die because they want their kids to fit in.

She's learning Punjabi, French, Spanish and Dutch. Not because she has to. Because she loves the people those languages belong to.

Meanwhile there are second and third generation Punjabis who can't hold a basic conversation with their own grandparents.

I don't say that to shame anyone — I've been that person. But something about a complete outsider caring more about preserving our language than some of us do hit differently.

What do you think is the real reason Punjabis abroad stop passing the language down? Is it shame? Practicality? Just life getting in the way?