First language

A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or

mother tongue is the first language a person has been
exposed to from birth[1] or within the 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.[2]

The first language of a child is part of that child's personal,

The monument to the mother tongue
social and cultural identity.[3] Another impact of the first
(ana dili) in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan
language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of
successful social patterns of acting and speaking.[4] 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.[5]

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

Definitions
The 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.[6] 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.[6]

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[7] 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"

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. Also, in Singapore, "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's ethnic
group regardless of actual proficiency, and the "first language" refers to English, which was established
on the island under the British Empire, and is the lingua franca for most post-independence Singaporeans
because of its use as the language of instruction in government schools and as a working language.

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."[8] 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 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.[7][9] 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 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 in particular).

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

Bilingualism
A related concept is 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 International Mother Language Day
than phonetic preferences.[10][11] Monument in Sydney, Australia,
unveiling ceremony, 21 February
2006
Multilingualism
One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed 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.[12]

An article titled "The Native Speaker: An Achievable Model?" published by the Asian EFL Journal[13]
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:

1. The individual acquired the language in early childhood and maintains the use of the
language.
2. The individual has intuitive knowledge of the language.
3. The individual is able to produce fluent, spontaneous discourse.
4. The individual is communicatively competent in different social contexts.
5. The individual identifies with or is identified by a language community.
6. 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
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2. Davies, Alan (2003). The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality (https://books.google.com/book
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