AITA for communicating with my daughter only in my language, not English?

NTA, but your daughter may develop a slight Indian accent when speaking English (which isn't a problem, I'm just giving a heads up).

I'm a South Asian-immigrant and when we came to the U.S. (I was a toddler, my brother was a kid) although my parents spoke to my brother and I in our native language, we always responded in English, and my parents didn't force us to speak our native language back. This meant that my brother and I developed American accents indistinguishable from native speakers.

But in the case of my South Asian friends who grew up surrounded by their language at home and spoke it back to their parents (even the ones born in the U.S.) have slight accents (and one of my Indian friends even sometimes slips into plain Indian English pronunciation, even though she was born in America), which is super interesting.

The ones who spoke a mix of languages to their parents don't seem to exhibit this.

It's also important to note that in linguistics there's the theory that some sound distinctions for languages are developed in infancy are difficult to develop when past that stage. I noticed some of these discrepancies in my own speech once in awhile, but they're not distinguishable unless you listen for them.

Again, all of these effects are very mild, and your daughter will be a fluent English speaker regardless. Just pointing out some slight things you may notice down the line.

/r/AmItheAsshole Thread