Voices Across Borders: Why Refugee Children Speak So Many Languages (and Why It Matters)

Refugee and displaced children often astonish educators, support workers, and community members with their ability to speak multiple languages. But this multilingualism isn’t simply a product of natural ability; it’s a form of resilience shaped by necessity, trauma, and cultural adaptability.

Understanding why refugee children often speak three, four, or even five languages requires more than curiosity. It demands a trauma-informed, culturally grounded perspective that recognises the sociopolitical, emotional, and survival contexts of displacement.

This blog explores the reasons behind refugee children’s multilingualism, the emotional and identity challenges they face, and why educators, therapists, and systems must not only support but also affirm their multilingual identities.

1. Multilingualism Is the Norm, Not the Exception

In many parts of the world, especially in regions where displacement is most common, multilingualism is a cultural baseline. Children in countries such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, or the Democratic Republic of Congo often grow up speaking:

• A home or heritage language (e.g., Dari, Lingala)

• A regional or trade language (e.g., Arabic, Swahili)

• A colonial or national language used in education or government (e.g., French, Urdu)

This exposure begins early and is reinforced through community, education, and religious institutions. As Trudell (2016) notes, multilingualism in African nations is often “deeply embedded in daily life,” reflecting the complex linguistic ecologies of entire regions.

In other words, many refugee children arrive in resettlement countries already multilingual, long before they even begin to learn English or the local language of their new home.

2. Displacement Drives Language Acquisition

Displacement often requires children to rapidly learn additional languages—usually through survival-based immersion. This may include:

• Transit languages used during migration (e.g., Farsi in Iran, Turkish in Turkey)

• Host-country languages (e.g., German, English, Spanish) for school, services, or integration

• Emergency communication skills are acquired through listening, mimicking, or visual cues

Children may learn these languages without formal instruction, simply because they must communicate. Research by Orellana (2009) describes how displaced and immigrant children often take on critical translation roles within weeks of arriving in a new context.

Language becomes not just a tool, but a lifeline.

3. Children as Language Brokers

A defining feature of many refugee children's experience is their role as language brokers—translating not only words, but cultural norms, emotional tones, and institutional expectations.

They are often asked to:

• Interpret for parents in medical or school settings

• Navigate legal documents

• Mediate cultural misunderstandings

• Help caregivers access housing, transport, and services

This brokering gives children a sense of agency and pride, but it also burdens them with adult responsibilities, which can lead to role confusion, anxiety, or burnout. As Trick and Zuberi (2017) emphasise, language brokering "exposes children to adult domains that they may not be emotionally equipped to handle."

It’s a form of resilience, but it can come at a cost.

4. Language, Emotion, and Identity

Language is more than a communication tool—it’s a carrier of identity, belonging, and memory.

Some refugee children actively suppress their first language to avoid being teased or bullied in school. Others cling to it as a tether to family, culture, and place.

When systems prioritise monolingualism or punish “accents,” refugee children may internalise shame. This can result in:

• Reduced self-esteem

• Cultural disconnection

• Loss of heritage transmission

  
  

Conversely, studies show that maintaining one’s first language supports:

• Family cohesion

• Academic success

• Mental health outcomes

• Identity stability (Gifford et al., 2007; Cummins, 2000)

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The ability to speak multiple languages should be seen as a superpower, not a problem to be corrected.

5. Supporting Multilingual Refugee Children in Practice

Understanding is not enough—action must follow. Educators, clinicians, and support workers must:

✅ Recognise the emotional labour of language brokering

Offer safe spaces for children to decompress and name what it’s like to carry adult responsibilities.

✅ Celebrate multilingualism

Use bilingual books, cultural storytelling, and heritage languages in classrooms and therapeutic settings.

✅ Avoid deficit thinking

Don’t pathologise “language confusion” without understanding the trauma and adaptation involved.

✅ Include family and community languages

Where possible, engage interpreters or cultural navigators to support whole-family healing and understanding.

✅ Advocate for policy change

Push for education systems that affirm home language retention alongside English or host language acquisition.

Conclusion

Refugee children’s multilingualism is not just a cognitive advantage. It’s a story of movement, of memory, of adapting across borders and carrying pieces of home in their voice.

They speak in many tongues, not to impress, but to survive. They translate not just words, but worlds. And they deserve systems that see their multilingualism not as a burden, but as a bridge.

References

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters.

Gifford, S. M., Correa-Velez, I., & Sampson, R. (2007). Good starts for recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds: Promoting wellbeing in the first three years of settlement in Melbourne, Australia. La Trobe Refugee Research Centre Report.

Orellana, M. F. (2009). Translating childhoods: Immigrant youth, language, and culture. Rutgers University Press.

Trick, L., & Zuberi, D. (2017). Children as cultural and linguistic mediators. International Migration, 55(3), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12342

Trudell, B. (2016). The multilayered nature of multilingualism in Africa. In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Multilingualism and language in education: Sociolinguistic and pedagogical perspectives from Commonwealth countries (pp. 21–36). Cambridge University Press.

UNESCO. (2019). International year of indigenous languages: Policy brief on multilingual education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000369926