Editing First language

{{Short description|Language a person is exposed to from birth}}
{{Redirect-several|dab=no|First Language (journal){{!}}''First Language'' (journal)|Mother tongue (disambiguation)|Father tongue hypothesis|Native Speaker (disambiguation)}}
{{for|the hypothetical predecessor of all spoken languages|Proto-human language}}
{{More citations needed|date=August 2008}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}

[[File:Ana Dili.JPG|thumb|upright=1.15|The monument to the mother tongue (''ana dili'') in [[Nakhchivan (city)|Nakhchivan]], Azerbaijan]]

A '''first language''' ('''L1'''), '''native language''', '''native tongue''', or '''mother tongue''' is the first [[language]] a person has been exposed to from birth<ref>Bloomfield, Leonard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Gfrd-On5iFwC&dq Language] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117111057/https://books.google.com/books?id=Gfrd-On5iFwC&dq |date=17 January 2023 }} {{ISBN|81-208-1196-8}}</ref> or within the [[critical period hypothesis|critical period]]. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers to the language of one's [[ethnic group]] rather than the individual's actual first language. Generally, to state a language as a mother tongue, one must have full native fluency in that language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JeTwQB5doD4C |title=The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality |date=2003 |publisher=Multilingual Matters |isbn=1-85359-622-1 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=17 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117111025/https://books.google.com/books?id=JeTwQB5doD4C |url-status=live }} {{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref>

The first language of a child is part of that child's personal, social and cultural identity.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bisnet.or.id/vle/mod/resource/view.php?id=1663|title=Terri Hirst: The Importance of Maintaining a Childs First Language|website=bisnet.or.id|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312012655/http://bisnet.or.id/vle/mod/resource/view.php?id=1663|archive-date=12 March 2016|url-status=dead|access-date=13 July 2010}}</ref> Another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking.{{clarify|date=May 2019}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boroditsky |first=Lera |date=2001 |title=Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time |url=http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/mandarin.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Cognitive Psychology |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1006/cogp.2001.0748 |pmid=11487292 |s2cid=5838599 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130510152648/http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/mandarin.pdf |archive-date=10 May 2013 |access-date=17 September 2013 }}</ref> Research suggests that while a non-native speaker may develop fluency in a targeted language after about two years of immersion, it can take between five and seven years for that child to be on the same working level as their native speaking counterparts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=IRIS {{!}} Page 5: Language Acquisition |url=https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/clde/cresource/q2/p05/ |access-date=20 September 2022 |website=iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu |archive-date=20 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220920173027/https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/clde/cresource/q2/p05/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

On 17 November 1999, [[UNESCO]] designated 21 February as [[International Mother Language Day]].

== Definitions ==
A person qualifies as a "native speaker" of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth, in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience to the child.<ref name="Love and Ansaldo 2010">{{Cite journal |last1=Love |first1=Nigel |last2=Ansaldo |first2=Umberto |date=2010 |title=The native speaker and the mother tongue |journal=Language Sciences |volume=32 |issue=6 |pages=589–593 |doi=10.1016/j.langsci.2010.09.003}}</ref> Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their given language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language, as opposed to having learned the language later in life. That is achieved by personal interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every grammatical rule of the language, but they will have good "intuition" of the rules through their experience with the language.<ref name="Love and Ansaldo 2010" />

The designation "native language", in its general usage, is thought to be imprecise and subject to various interpretations that are biased linguistically, especially with respect to bilingual children from ethnic minority groups. Many scholars<ref name=":0" /> have given definitions of "native language" based on common usage, the emotional relation of the speaker towards the language, and even its dominance in relation to the environment. However, all three criteria lack precision. For many children whose home language differs from the language of the environment (the "official" language), it is debatable which language is their "native language".

===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.

== Bilingualism ==
[[File:Int-mother-lang-day-monument.jpg|thumb|[[International Mother Language Day]] Monument in Sydney, Australia, unveiling ceremony, 21 February 2006]]A related concept is [[Multilingualism|bilingualism]]. One definition is that a person is bilingual if they are equally proficient in two languages. Someone who grows up speaking Spanish and then learns English for four years is bilingual only if they speak the two languages with equal fluency. Pearl and Lambert were the first to test only "balanced" bilinguals—that is, a child who is completely fluent in two languages and feels that neither is their "native" language because they grasp both so perfectly. This study found that

*balanced bilinguals perform significantly better in tasks that require flexibility (they constantly shift between the two known languages depending on the situation),
*they are more aware of the arbitrary nature of language,
*they choose word associations based on logical rather than phonetic preferences.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alsintl.com/blog/language-proficiency/|title=Language Proficiency: Defining Levels Avoids Confusion|date=26 August 2013|publisher=Alsintl.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130917082347/http://www.alsintl.com/blog/language-proficiency|archive-date=17 September 2013|url-status=live|access-date=13 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last1=Hakuta |first1=Kenji |title=The relationship between degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability: A critical discussion and some new longitudinal data |date=1985 |url=http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/khakuta/research/publications/(1985)%20-%20THE%20RELATIONSHIP%20BETWEEN%20DEGREE%20OF%20BILINGUALISM%20AND.pdf |work=Children's Language |volume=5 |pages=319–344  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131024165613/http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/khakuta/research/publications/(1985)%20-%20THE%20RELATIONSHIP%20BETWEEN%20DEGREE%20OF%20BILINGUALISM%20AND.pdf |access-date=21 October 2013 |archive-date=24 October 2013 |last2=Diaz |first2=Rafael M. |url-status=live}}</ref>

==Multilingualism==
One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native ''bilingual'' or indeed ''[[Multilingualism|multilingual]]''. The order in which these languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, if a French-speaking couple have a child who learned French first but then grew up in an English-speaking country, the child would likely be most proficient in English.
===Defining "native speaker"===
Defining what constitutes a native speaker is difficult, and there is no test which can identify one. It is not known whether native speakers are a defined group of people, or if the concept should be thought of as a perfect prototype to which actual speakers may or may not conform.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Linguistics Student's Handbook|last=Bauer|first=Laurie|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7486-2758-5|pages=78}}</ref>

An article titled "The Native Speaker: An Achievable Model?" published by the Asian EFL Journal<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lee |first=Joseph J. |date=2005 |title=The native speaker: An achievable model? |url=https://asian-efl-journal.com/June_05_jl.pdf |journal=Asian EFL Journal |volume=7 |issue=2 |at=article 9 |access-date=26 May 2020 |archive-date=29 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201229185102/http://asian-efl-journal.com/June_05_jl.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> states that there are six general principles that relate to the definition of "native speaker". The principles, according to the study, are typically accepted by language experts across the scientific field. A native speaker is defined according to the following guidelines:

#The individual acquired the language in early childhood and maintains the use of the language.
#The individual has intuitive knowledge of the language.
#The individual is able to produce fluent, spontaneous discourse.
#The individual is communicatively competent in different social contexts.
#The individual identifies with or is identified by a language community.
#The individual does not have a foreign accent.

==See also==
*[[Heritage language]]
*[[Child of deaf adult]]
*[[Human Speechome Project]]
*[[Third culture kid]]
*[[List of languages by number of native speakers]]
*[[Statistical learning in language acquisition]]
*[[Father tongue hypothesis]]
*[[Native tongue title]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:First Language}}
[[Category:Language acquisition]]
[[Category:Sociolinguistics]]
[[Category:Identity (social science)]]
[[Category:Cultural heritage]]