Our Story

Hi, I’m Dr. Malavi Sivakanesan, the founder of Linguoland. As a mother of two young boys—a two-year-old and an eight-month-old—I know firsthand how challenging it can be to teach children a new language while juggling the demands of daily life. Raising my kids in the UK, I’ve struggled to pass on my mother tongue, Tamil, while also introducing Norwegian, a language I grew up speaking fluently in Norway. To add to the challenge, my toddler spends most of his day at nursery where English is his primary language. With late speech running in my family—my brother didn’t start speaking until he was four years old—I wanted to give my child the best chance to develop his language skills early. I began searching for creative toys and tools to help my toddler learn Tamil and other languages, but everything I found was either too expensive or impractical. The few options available often cluttered our playroom without delivering meaningful progress. That’s when the idea for Linguoland was born. I envisioned a sustainable model that wouldn’t waste money or space but would instead grow with a child’s language development needs. Together with my co-founder and sister, Sharmali Sivakanesan—or as my kids lovingly call her, “Best Chithi” (best aunt)—we created Linguoland to help families like ours.