MichelleStClairBath

I would suggest consistency. If you consistently speak French with your child, he will learn French. If you stay consistent throughout his childhood, he will both understand French and learn to speak it as well. If there is a lack of consistency, sometimes people can develop good understanding of a language, but lack the ability to converse easily in that language. With sufficient exposure, your child could become trilingual, particularly if Icelandic and English are taught in school (note: I am assuming you are raising your child in Iceland and that schools may teach English, but I acknowledge these are two big assumptions!)

It is of note that multilingualism is the norm globally, although monolinguism is often represented as the norm! And monolingualism, particularly English monolingualism, is overstudied within the scientific literature.

I'll just answer a bit more, as there are no other questions yet! I think DLD often going undiagnosed because children are very good at hiding or trying to not appear as if they don't understand. They may decide to just go under a table at school if they don't know what they are meant to do. Therefore, the more pressing issue is the behaviour, not necessary language. If a child does have behavioural issues, particularly when they reach school age, language should be a factor investigated. These children are often very smart, but do not understand why they are struggling. So they hide it and it goes unnoticed far too often.

DLD is not caused by multilingualism and the current recommendations are to continue to exposure children with DLD to all languages in their environment. So no, there is no real relationship between multiple languages and DLD. DLD is a neurodivergent disorder, like autism, and is not caused by the environment.

Hi - language creation is not really my area, but is fascinating. What we need to understand is even if you built a "perfect" language, with language use it would change. Language is not static and is constantly evolving. For instance, I never use the word "overwhelm" as a noun, like I would anxiety. I would talk about overwhelming feelings. However, use of overwhelm on its own is more and more common, particularly amongst people who are younger than myself!

However, I can sympathise with you that English spellings. English spellings are not what we call "transparent". If you learn languages like Italian there is a much clearer link between sounds and letters.

Unfortunately, I am not an expert in language construction, so can't comment on what features it would be. However, I hope this response is interesting to you!

Hi Everyone - Thanks for all the questions. As usual, it's been a pleasure to answer your questions this past hour. If you are interested in DLD research, please learn more here: https://www.engage-dld.com You can considering signing up to our project if you have a child with DLD or have DLD or think you might have DLD yourself.

Thanks again!