It starts small. Your kid responds in English when you speak to them in Malayalam. You correct them a few times, then you stop correcting them because dinner is getting cold and you have had a long day. Before you know it, a decade has passed and your teenager can understand Malayalam perfectly but speaks it like a tourist reading a phrasebook.
This is the quiet anxiety of almost every Malayali parent in the diaspora, and no one talks about it because it feels like a failure. It isn’t.
Language loss is a well-documented pattern in immigrant communities worldwide. By the third generation, heritage language fluency drops to near zero in most diaspora populations. The Malayali community is actually doing better than many, partly because Malayalam media (films, songs, social media) remains vibrant and globally accessible.
What helps: weekend Malayalam schools run by community organisations in the Gulf, UK, and US. Speaking Malayalam at home consistently, even when the reply comes in English. Watching Malayalam films together (Mammootty and Mohanlal have done more for language preservation than any government programme). And visiting Kerala regularly so the language connects to real people and places, not just textbooks.
What doesn’t help: guilt. Your child is navigating multiple cultures and languages. They will find their own relationship with Malayalam. Your job is to keep the door open, not to push them through it.