Editing First language (section)

===Defining "native language"{{anchor|Defining native language}}===

*Based on origin: the language(s) or dialect one learned first (the language(s) or dialect in which one has established the first long-lasting verbal contacts).
*Based on internal identification: the language(s) one identifies with/as a speaker of;
*Based on external identification: the language(s) one is identified with/as a speaker of, by others.
*Based on competence: the language(s) one knows best.
*Based on function: the language(s) one uses most.

In some countries, such as [[Kenya]], [[India]], [[Belarus]], [[Ukraine]] and various East Asian and Central Asian countries, "mother language" or "native language" is used to indicate the language of one's [[ethnic group]] in both common and journalistic parlance ("I have no apologies for not learning my mother tongue"), rather than one's first language. In [[Singapore]], "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's [[ethnic group]] regardless of actual proficiency.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Learning a Mother Tongue Language in primary school |url=https://www.moe.gov.sg/primary/curriculum/mother-tongue-languages/learning-in-school |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=www.moe.gov.sg |language=en}}</ref>

In the context of population censuses conducted on the Canadian population, [[Statistics Canada]] defines the ''mother tongue'' as "the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Reference/dict/pop082.htm|title=mother tongue|work=2001 census|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916172728/http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Reference/dict/pop082.htm|archive-date=16 September 2008|url-status=live|access-date=25 August 2008}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=August 2008}}
It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a speaker's dominant language. That includes young immigrant children whose families have moved to a new linguistic environment as well as people who learned their mother tongue as a young child at home (rather than the language of the majority of the community), who may have lost, in part or in totality, the language they first [[language acquisition|acquired]] (see [[language attrition]]). According to [[Ivan Illich]], the term "mother tongue" was first used by [[Catholic]] monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of [[Latin]], when they were "speaking from the pulpit". That is, the "holy mother the Church" introduced this term and colonies inherited it from Christianity as a part of colonialism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title="(M)Other Tongue Syndrome: From Breast To Bottle." |url=https://www.academia.edu/411071 |access-date=2024-05-20 |website=academia.edu |last1=Bandyopadhyay |first1=Debaprasad }}</ref><ref>Ivan Illich, [http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Vernacular.html "Vernacular Values"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160720033517/http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Vernacular.html |date=20 July 2016 }}</ref> [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], in his 1955 lecture "[[English and Welsh]]", distinguishes the "native tongue" from the "cradle tongue". The latter is the language one learns during early childhood, and one's true "native tongue" may be different, possibly determined by an inherited linguistic taste{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} and may later in life be discovered by a strong emotional affinity to a specific dialect (Tolkien personally confessed to such an affinity to the [[Middle English]] of the [[West Midlands (region)|West Midlands]] in particular).

Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, and be [[Simultaneous bilingualism|bilingual]] or [[multilingual]]. By contrast, a ''[[second language]]'' is any language that one speaks other than one's first language.