Illustration by Lee Hyun Choi/The Gazelle

When I was a kid, my parents would often speak to me in Hindko instead of Urdu. It annoyed me; why couldn’t they just talk to me in Urdu the same way that my friends’ parents talked to them? I’ve come to understand that the answer to this question is complicated: they were trying to pass on the rich traditions of my family and to ensure that our heritage was preserved.

As I grew up, I started speaking more Urdu and less Hindko. Only in my teenage years did I realize the significance of this part of myself that I allowed to slip away. In the yearly visits to my village, I saw the spark that my efforts to communicate in Hindko would ignite. It made the villagers see me as a person who was still in touch with her roots as opposed to someone lost in the chaos of the big city. I realized that to understand people — my people — I had to break the invisible boundaries set by linguistic differences.

When I moved to Abu Dhabi, I became interested in the Emirati linguistic history. I wondered about the journey they underwent to maintain their identity in a country filled with immigrants. Had immigrants, although a majority, made an effort to surpass linguistic barriers and learned Arabic? That’s what I assumed had happened; outsiders typically make an effort to integrate into the new culture in order to feel at home in a new place.

The histories of linguistic diversity in Emirati families are complex. Stories of Emirati families are not told exclusively in Arabic; other languages have become an important component of their heritage and culture. This diversity, ranging from Farsi to Urdu and Hindi, begs an inevitable question: can it be maintained in future generations?

The UAE has attracted large numbers of South Asian laborers over the past decades. This influx has made it necessary for some Emiratis to learn phrases in Urdu or Hindi in order to better communicate with a large portion of their country’s population.

“My father learned Urdu and Hindi for the ease of communication with the South Asian population in the UAE. He had an Indian cook, many South Asians worked in my grandfather’s company and Indian movies became a big part of his life, so it wasn’t difficult for him to pick up the phrases in everyday life,” said Aisha, an Emirati student at NYU Abu Dhabi.

“The main language in my family is obviously the Emirati dialect of Arabic, but my dad also speaks a lot of phrases from Urdu and Hindi and can hold a small conversation in these language[s],” said Sarah, also an NYUAD student.

Both Emirati families and the South Asian migrant population have made efforts to overcome the linguistic barriers that separate them.

“It is true that some of the Indians that my dad knows made the effort to learn Arabic but it was broken Arabic and it sufficed in small businesses,” explained Aisha. “I speak to my Indian driver in broken Arabic.”

The popularity of English in the UAE means that Urdu and Hindi have become less essential. It is easier to communicate in a shared lingua franca rather than learn a new language altogether.

“I believe that with increased globalization there is no longer any need for my generation to make the effort to pick up phrases from Urdu or Hindi in order to communicate with the South Asian population since English has taken over the UAE, just like many other countries,” said Sarah.

“We only have our mother tongue, Arabic, and the other is English since it is the tool for you to get around and conduct business,” explained Sarah.

Another language, Eemy, is part of Emirati tradition. It is a mixture of Arabic and Farsi, only spoken by certain families, and has a largely oral tradition.

“Before the discovery of oil in the UAE, my ancestors used to trade goods between southern parts of Persia and the UAE. While my family was trading in the two regions in the past, we got a language that is somewhere in between Arabic and Farsi and called it Eemy,” said Aisha.

“It has been passed on in the Eeam families by word of mouth since it was never written down. My mother does not know Farsi but only knows this specific dialect while my father and aunt can also speak many Farsi words. However, this unique language is fading in my family,” added Aisha.

“I’m the only one among my siblings who understands and speaks Eemy,” Aisha continued. “I think it is because my parents did not make a lot of effort to communicate with us in Eemy but instead used it as a way for us to not understand what they were talking about in our childhood.”

Various dialects of Eemy are spoken in different emirates, which highlights the importance of transmitting this linguistic treasure through generations.

“The Eeam families in Dubai have certain words that those from Abu Dhabi do not have. My grandmother is from Sharjah and she speaks Eemy in quite a different way, as the combination of words have become integrated in her own dialect of the language,” said Aisha.

While I speak in my broken Hindko, I contemplate the fate of varied linguistic cultures. Perhaps knowing regional dialects means little in a globalized world. On the other hand, maybe we can find meaning in staying connected to our family lineage. I hope we find answers to these questions before it is too late and minority languages slip through our fingers.