English 1 - The rest 0

She's succeeded. BK2 has succeeded in Englishising her sisters. The shift from Arabic to English started a while ago, but was mostly confined to role play. Now most conversations between the girls are in English, even serious arguments! To top it off, BK3 even speaks to us, her parents, in English!

I find myself nagging them all day: "stop speaking in English, speak Arabic!", which usually results in either silence, whispering (in English) or a short Arabic phrase followed shortly by a flow of English conversation.

How to redress the balance? Is it too late? Are they bound to think of our minority languages as confined to conversing with us? I worry particularly about Arabic, as it is mostly a spoken language at this moment in time with me being the sole source.

I wonder what effect our move to Switzerlnd will have on the sibling language.