How long does it take for an immigrant family to lose its native language?
It generally takes two or three generations for an immigrant family to lose its native mother tongue and adopt the language of its new country. The first generation keeps the old language, children may be bilingual, and later generations shift to the adopted language, such as English in America.
Les explains that when immigrants came to America, they tried to learn English as quickly as they could, but their little children first learned the native language the parents had come from—German, Dutch, French, Greek, or whatever it may have been. Many of those children were bilingual. It is not until two or three generations go by that they lose that mother tongue and then pick up their adopted language, which in America is English. He uses this to illustrate how dispersed peoples, such as the Jews, could be assimilated into a broader culture over time.