“The mother tongue of more than three billion people is one of 20: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, German, Chinese Wu, Korean, French, Telugu, Marathi, Turkish, Tamil, Vietnamese and Urdu. English is the lingua franca of the digital age, and those who use it as a second language can surpass its native speakers by hundreds of millions. On all continents, people are abandoning their ancestral languages for the dominant language of the majority of their region. Assimilation brings undeniable benefits, especially as the use of the Internet increases and rural youth move to cities. But the loss of languages handed down for millennia, as well as their unique arts and cosmologies, can have consequences that are not understood until it is too late to reverse them. (Thurman, Judith. “A waste of words.” The New Yorker, March 30, 2015.) “The vagueness of this term has led some researchers to claim. that the different connotative meanings of the term “mother tongue” vary depending on the intended use of the word and that differences in the understanding of the term can have profound and often political consequences. However, the term mother tongue is not used to define a particular language. The term “mother tongue” refers to a person`s mother tongue, that is, a language learned from birth. Also called mother tongue, dominant language, mother tongue and mother tongue (although these terms are not necessarily synonymous). Many sources refer synonymously to the mother tongue and the mother tongue or mother tongue. “Maybe you don`t speak my language,” she said in Urdu, the most commonly heard language in Upper India.
`[T]he general use of the term `mother tongue`. refers not only to the language one learns from one`s mother, but also to the dominant and mother tongue of the speaker; that is, not only the first language after the moment of acquisition, but the first in terms of meaning and the speaker`s ability to master his linguistic and communicative aspects. For example, if a language school advertises that all of its teachers are native English speakers, we would most likely complain if we learned later that although teachers have vague childhood memories of when they spoke to their mother in English, they grew up in a non-English-speaking country and are only fluent in a second language. Similarly, in translation theory, the statement that one should only translate into one`s mother tongue is actually a statement that one should only translate into one`s first and dominant language. One of my roommates muttered and wondered if Yang was too handsome to speak in his native language. Your native language is important because it can help you stay connected to your mother`s or father`s origin. In the context of censuses of the Canadian population, Statistics Canada defines mother tongue as “the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the person at the time of the census.” [8] [untrusted source?] It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer the dominant language of a speaker. These include young immigrant children whose families have moved to a new language environment, as well as people who learned their mother tongue at home when they were young (not the language of the majority of the community) who may have partially or completely lost the language they first acquired (see Language Wear and Tear). According to Ivan Illich, the term “mother tongue” was first used by Catholic monks to refer to a particular language that they used instead of Latin when they “spoke of the pulpit.” That is, the “Holy Mother of the Church” introduced this term and the colonies inherited it from Christianity as part of colonialism. [9] [10] In 1955, J. R.
R. Tolkien distinguished the “mother tongue” from the “cradle language” in his lecture “English and Welsh”. The latter is the language one learns in early childhood, and the true “mother tongue” may be different, perhaps determined by an inherited linguistic taste, and may be discovered later in life through a strong emotional affinity for a particular dialect (Tolkien himself professed such an affinity for West Midlands Middle English in particular). It is possible to forget your mother tongue. If the mother tongue is only spoken by parents or extended family, people may begin to forget their native language due to lack of use. “Cultural power can. Turn against yourself when the choices of those who embrace Americanness in language, accent, clothing, or choice of entertainment arouse resentment among those who do not. Whenever an Indian adopts an American accent and curbs their “native speaker influence,” as call them call them, in hopes of getting a job, they seem more deviant and frustrating to have only one Indian accent. “(Giridharadas, Anand.” America sees little return of the “power of imitation.” The New York Times, June 4, 2010.) The mother tongue is acquired through a natural process that begins while the child is in the womb.
These sample sentences are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “mother tongue”. The opinions expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. Learning your native language is often a very important part of understanding and preserving your cultural heritage. Read on to learn everything you need to know about the native language, including: the meaning and definition of the native language; if you can, you have more than one mother tongue; how the native language differs from your native language and much more. The mother tongue also provides you with cultural context. The mother tongue is so called because it is the language of your primary caregiver who has traditionally been the mother. Your mother tongue influences language learning and acquisition because it teaches you a basic language structure or how languages work. The term “mother tongue” in its common usage is considered inaccurate and subject to various interpretations that are linguistically biased, particularly with regard to bilingual children from ethnic minority groups.
Many researchers have given definitions of “mother tongue” based on the common use of the language, the speaker`s emotional relationship with the language, and even their dominance over the environment. However, all three criteria lack precision. For many children whose mother tongue is different from the language of the environment (the “official language”), one may wonder what language their “mother tongue” is. This often happens when children start going to school and most of their day is spent in the language of the community rather than in their mother tongue. “It is the linguistic community of the mother tongue, the language spoken in a region, that allows the process of enculturation, the growth of an individual in a certain system of linguistic perception of the world and participation in the secular history of linguistic production. “Mother tongue. » Merriam-Webster.com dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mother%20tongue. Retrieved 11 October 2022. Research has shown that children typically need about 30% of their language entry to be in their native language to learn fluently.
In some countries, such as Kenya, India, Belarus, Ukraine and various countries in East and Central Asia, the “mother tongue” or “mother tongue” is used to indicate the language of one`s own ethnic group, both in general and in journalistic language (“I do not apologize for not learning my mother tongue”), not the mother tongue. Also in Singapore, “mother tongue” refers to the language of one`s own ethnic group, regardless of actual knowledge, and “mother tongue” refers to English, which was established on the island under the British Empire and is the lingua franca for most Singaporeans after independence because it is used as a language of instruction in public schools and as a working language. An article entitled “The Native Speaker: An Achievable Model?” published by the Asian EFL Journal[14] indicates that there are six general principles related to the definition of “native speaker”. The principles, according to the study, are generally accepted by linguistic experts throughout the scientific field. A native speaker is defined according to the following guidelines: In some cases, even if parents speak the native language at home, children may begin to use the dominant community language first when they are more exposed to it. A mother tongue, mother tongue, mother tongue, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect to which a person has been exposed from birth[1] or during the critical phase. In some countries, the term mother tongue or mother tongue refers to the language or dialect of one`s own ethnic group and not the mother tongue. [2] Mother tongue (or mother tongue) has several definitions. Here are the four main meanings of mother tongue: One of the most widely used definitions of native speakers is that they were born (and) grew up in a particular country to speak the language or dialect of that country or region during the critical phase of their development. [6] [not specified in citation] The person qualifies as a “native speaker” of a language by being born and immersed in the language as a teenager, in a family where adults shared a language experience similar to that of the child. [7] Native speakers are considered an authority in their respective languages because of their natural learning process in relation to the language, rather than having learned the language later in life.
This is achieved through personal interaction with the language and the speakers of the language.