In English, for example, I use sensible with the meaning of  sensitive.

sensible (adj.) late 14c., “capable of sensation or feeling;” also “capable of being sensed or felt, perceptible to the senses,” hence “easily understood; logical, reasonable,” from Late Latin sensibilis “having feeling: perceptible by the senses,” from sensus, past participle of sentire “perceive, feel” (see sense (n.)).

Of persons, “aware, cognizant (of something)” early 15c.; “having good sense, capable of reasoning, discerning, clever,” mid-15c. Of clothes, shoes, etc., “practical rather than fashionable” it is attested from 1855.

and

sensitive (adj.), late 14c., in reference to the body or its parts, “having the function of sensation”, also (early 15c.) “pertaining to the faculty of the soul that receives and analyzes sensory information”, from Old French sensitif “capable of feeling” (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin sensitivus “capable of sensation”, from Latin sensus, past participle of sentire “feel perceive” (like sense (n.)). 

Meaning “easily affected” (with reference to mental feelings) first recorded in 1816; meaning “having intense physical sensation” is from 1849. Original meaning is preserved in sensitive plant (1630s.), which is “mechanically irritable in a higher degree than almost any other plant” (Century Dictionary). Meaning “involving national security” is recorded from 1953.

Other Middle English senses included “susceptible to injury or pain” (early 15c., now gone with sensitive); “worldly, temporal, outward” (c. 1400); “carnal, unspiritual” (early 15c., now gone with sensual). Related: Sensibleness.

When looking at the meanings of sensible and sensitive in English, French and Italian for example, I think it is clearer why I tend to mis-use the term in English.

In French, sensible is equivalent to the English sensitive. This is the explanation from the Larousse :

• Qui est, qui peut être perçu par les sens : Le monde sensible.
• Qui est apte à éprouver des perceptions, des sensations : Avoir l’oreille sensible.
• Qui est très facilement affecté par la moindre action ou agression extérieure : Être sensible de la gorge. Une dent sensible au froid.
• Se dit d’une partie du corps que l’on ressent, qui est plus ou moins douloureuse : La douleur est moins vive, mais la zone est toujours sensible.
• Qui éprouve facilement des émotions, des sentiments, notamment de pitié, de compassion : Une nature sensible. Être sensible à la douleur d’autrui.
• Qui est particulièrement accessible à certaines impressions d’ordre intellectuel, moral, esthétique ; réceptif : Être sensible aux compliments.
• Se dit d’un appareil, d’un instrument de mesure, qui obéit à de très légères sollicitations : Une balance très sensible.
• Se dit d’un matériel, d’un produit qui est sujet à des variations de prix dépendant de facteurs extérieurs.
• Que l’on doit traiter avec une attention, une vigilance particulière : Dossier sensible.
• Qui fait l’objet d’une surveillance renforcée pour des raisons de sécurité : Vol sensible.
• Qui est facilement perçu par les sens ou par l’esprit : Une sensible différence de prix.
• Se dit d’une émulsion photographique, d’un explosif, d’un matériel, etc., doués de sensibilité.

Whereas French sensitif means sensory or oversensitive in English. As, like Larousse says: Sensitif se dit d’un sujet doué de perception extrasensorielle. 

For some time I also used the term “awful” in its etymological way, i.e. “worthy of respect or fear”, and not with its actual meaning “very bad”. Especially when reacting spontaneously to an awesome situation, it happened that I said awful, not intending it in the modern way, but in the medieval way:

awful (adj.): c.1300, agheful “worthy of respect or fear”, from aghe  an earlier form of awe (n.) + ful. The Old English word was egefull. Weakened sense “very bad” is from 1809; weakened sense of “exceedingly” is by 1818.

Do you also use a word in its etymological way or with the meaning it has in another language? Please share in the comments.

 

In the strictest sense, we all have a mother tongue as we all have only one (biological) mother. – But does this mean that the language our mother talked to us is automatically our mother tongue?

What about this friend I had in school, who was adopted when she was 2 and grew up in a Dutch family: would her mother tongue be Swahili because her mum was talking Swahili to her or would it be Dutch, because this was the language the mother who adopted her talked to her?

Usually, mother tongue – or father tongue to be politically correct! –  defines the first language we were exposed to, chronologically speaking, our L1, the first language we understand, speak, the one we grew up with or that our parents (or caregivers) speak with us. And usually people tend to speak this language for a long time.

If we want to define the first language we speak, learn and feel comfortable with, the term first language may seem more appropriate. This first language doesn’t have to be one. In bilingual families it can be two or three: the important aspect to define a language as first language is, that the child uses it on a regular basis, preferably every day from the very beginning. Linguists suggested a few years ago that an exposure of at least 20% of the daily time would be optimal for a child to become (almost) equally proficient in the family languages (but this has changed already and the duration of exposure is not the most important factor of becoming a bilingual!).

If there are more than one first languages in a family, we can also use the term of family languages: these would be for example the language a child talks with the mother, another one with the father, a third one with a caregiver (i.e. at daycare, school etc.), maybe a next one with extended family or locals, a fourth one with friends… Simultaneous bilinguals or multilinguals are exposed to more than one (or two) languages since day one. Successive bilinguals or multilinguals, are those who add other languages after having acquired the first language(s).

Using a term like family languages works if the language situation within the family is stable. And it would also work for extended family would share these languages – But we all know that in multilingual families, the languages we speak at home can vary and the situation can shift. Situations change, we move abroad, we immerse into other cultures and languages and within a bilingual family this can be a reason for preferring one language to another – even if only for a certain period of time.
I personally prefer and use the term of home languages when I talk about the languages a family speaks at home, as there can be other people involved: caregivers, nannies, babysitters etc. can speak another language to my child on a daily/weekly basis and this language would become one of the most important languages for my child.

My languages

Let’s consider my personal language situation: my parents only spoke German with me and my sister, but we were exposed to Italian since day one. We didn’t “learn” it in the conventional, academical way, so Italian counts as our second-mother-tongue or one of our first languages. – Usually, when people ask me which is my mother tongue (or mother language) I answer German and Italian. Both languages are still equally dominant and valuable for me.

If I analyze the different phases in my life, there were phases where Italian or French or German were dominant languages. In one phase (of almost 6 years) I would mainly speak Italian and French (and study Old-French and Old-Provençal, which felt like “living” in this time and period!). During that period I really had difficulties communicating in German and couldn’t form a complete sentence in German.

Only when this linguistic situation changed and I focused more on German and Italian, my German became more dominant for a short period.

English is the fourth language I’ve learned and I didn’t use it very often from age 20 to 34. I did re-activate and improve it when we moved to the Netherlands and our children started attending an English school. At the same time I also improved my Dutch.

In the last 11 years, English and Dutch became the most dominant languages, with German being our family language.

Therefore, my first languages are now German, English and Dutch, with occasionally Italian (the language that still feels like the closest to my heart!), French and Swissgerman (and adding Spanish to the picture which I have a great passive knowledge in but where I’m working on the verbal fluency).

What are my children’s first languages?

From a chronological point of view, Italian and Swiss-German are the “first languages” for all of my children, but only for their first years, because we decided at some point to only speak German with them – while still reading and singing with them in Swiss-German and Italian –, and this changed again when they started attending the Dutch daycare and then an English school.

Today – I should better say “at the moment”…– they consider German, English and Dutch as their main languages, i.e. the ones they are most fluent in. These are their most dominant languages. They don’t feel that confident in Swiss-German or Italian at the moment, but I know by my own experience that this can change if the linguistic situation changes again or if they just decide to talk them more often.

For multilingual children, the linguistic situation within the family and social context changes constantly, and if this happens in their early years, the concept of “first language” changes too, it only refers to the first language acquired, so in strictly chronological terms.

The first language or mother tongue plays an important role in sociolinguistics, as it is the basis for people’s sociolinguistic identity. Terms like native language or mother tongue refer to an ethnic group rather than to the first language. This all confuses families and teachers as, usually, one needs to indicate the “mother tongue” of the children when signing them up for a daycare or school. This is why I always recommend to indicate also the languages that our children are most dominant in at the moment… 

Native speakers are considered to be “authority on their given language due to their natural acquisition process regarding the language, versus having learned the language later in life”.

By concentrating on the natural acquisition process, my native languages would be German, Italian, Swiss-German and Dutch because I did acquire them naturally, i.e. without “studying” them. I did not “learn” them at school, I did imitate speakers and copy sentences. I learnt how to read and write them partly at school – German and Italian.

The fact that someone is a “native” speaker because he or she acquired this language at an early stage, doesn’t really make sense to me. We all need to nurture our languages, learn the different meanings of words, form longer sentences, find out what register to use in different settings, which all takes many years!

Fact is that we are perfectly able to acquire a language in a “natural” way also in a later stage of our life. And if a language we acquired or learnt later in life becomes our most dominant language, i.e. the one we speak most, write in and read, our “first language” or “mother tongue” can become a secondary language and sometimes even be lost… (cfr. language attrition).

In his lecture “English and Welsh” in 1955, J.R.R. Tolkien distinguishes the “native tongue” from the “cradle tongue”. The cradle tongue being the language we learn during early childhood and the 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 confessed to such an affinity to the Middle English of the West Midlands in particular)” (cfr. pdf of “English and Welsh” by J.R.R. Tolkien)

We each have our own personal linguistic potential: we each have a native language. But that is not the language that we speak, our cradle-tongue, the first-learned. Linguistically we all wear ready-made clothes, and our native language comes seldom to expression, save perhaps by pulling at the ready-made till it sits a little easier. But though it may be buried, it is never wholly extinguished, and contact with other languages may stir it deeply.

My chief point here is to emphasize the difference between the first-learned language, the language of custom, and an individual’s native language, his inherent linguistic predilections: not to deny that he will share many of these with others of his community. He will share them, no doubt, in proportion as he shares other elements in his make-up. (cfr. “English and Welsh” by J.R.R. Tolkien, p.18)

There is so much to say (and write) about this topic! One could add the term of heritage language, which is often misunderstood as a synonym of mother language/tongue… But I’ll stop here.

The predilection of a language is more important than the chronological place it has in our language acquisition history. (Ute)

For me, personally, the language I prefer speaking and that is closest to my heart and I’m more spontaneous in, is not the language my parents talked to me during the first period of my life. What about you? Do you (still) prefer speaking the first language you learnt, or is another language more important for you right now?

If you are interested in this topic and would like to know more about it:

I hold workshops on bilingualism and parenting the bilingual child and consult parents, caregivers and teachers about it.

About the origin of the term mother tongue

“The origin of the term mother tongue harks back to the notion that linguistic skills of a child are honed by the mother and therefore the language spoken by the mother would be the primary language that the child would learn.” However, this type of culture-specific notion is a misnomer. The term was used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of Latin, when they are “speaking from the pulpit”.That is, the “holy mother of the Church” introduced this term and colonies inherited it from the Christianity as a part of their colonial legacy, thanks to the effort made by foreign missionaries in the transitional period of switching over from 18th-century Mercantile Capitalism to 19th-century Industrial Capitalism in India.” (cfr. wikipedia)

Why don’t we say “amn’t I” instead of “aren’t I”? If we say “am I” why don’t we say “amn’t I”? Isn’t “aren’t I” grammatically incorrect? – I recently had a long discussion with my son about the fact that using aren’t I doesn’t seem right, at least not if we learn that the correct form for the first person is “am”.
Why don’t we use amn’t I instead? This made me curious to look up if this form was ever used and why aren’t I is the current, accepted form instead.

The contraction of I am not in questions is not a logic form for English learners – and teachers: the form I’m not should be Amn’t I ? (with postposition of “I”) in a question.

Why don’t we say “amn’t I” as the the negative form? If in declarative sentences we use the standard form I am not and in questions am I not, and in declarative case, the standard contraction is I’m not, so why don’t we apply this in questions where speakers feel the need for a negative contraction like in “isn’t it” or “aren’t they”?

The contraction ain’t seems to stand for am not and is attested since 1618 (Merriam-Webster). As the combination of two nasal consonants “m-n” is disfavoured by English speakers, the “m” of amn’t was elided, i.e. one of the nasal sounds was dropped to simplify the pronunciation: this reflected in writing with the form an’t. An’t first appears  in the work of English Restoration playwrights (cfr. Merriam-Webster) and in 1695 an’t was used as a contraction of am not in William Congreve’s play Love for Love: “I can hear you farther off, I an’t deaf”, but an’t also appears as a contraction of “are not” in Sir John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse (1676): “Hart thee shoemaker! These shoes an’t ugly, but they don’t fit me”.
Interestingly, the contracted form aren’t for are not appeared in 1675. – In non-rhotic dialects, aren’t lost its “r” sound, and began to be pronounced as an’t.

Apparently, during that period, the form an’t was used for the 1rst singular and 1rst plural form: I am not/ I amn’t = I an’t and We aren’t = We an’t.

An’t for is not

An’t for is not may have developed independently from its use for am not and are not.

Just to complicate it a bit more: isn’t was sometimes written as in’t or en’t, which could have changed into an’t.  “An’t for is not may have filled a gap as an extension of the already-used conjugations for to be not: Jonathan Swift used an’t to mean is not in Letter 19 of his Journal to Stella (1710–13): It an’t my fault, ’tis Patrick’s fault; pray now don’t blame Presto.”

From an’t to  ain’t

The “a” in an’t must have been a long “a” and was written as ain’t since 1749– with the epenthetic “i”.

Interestingly, when ain’t appeared, an’t was already used for am not, are not, and is not.

Therefore, an’t and ain’t coexisted as written forms well into the nineteenth century:

Charles Dickens used the terms interchangeably, as in Chapter 13, Book the Second of Little Dorrit (1857): “‘I guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,” said she, ‘for it’s quite your regular night; ain’t it? … An’t it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?'”.

In the English lawyer William Hickey‘s memoirs (1808–1810), ain’t appears as a contraction of aren’t; “thank God we’re all alive, ain’t we…”

We can find the contraction ain’t for “am not”

In dialects or regional variants…

I was positively surprised when I heared a Scottish friend use amn’t once in a question and found out that it was quite common. In fact:

The contraction amn’t is a standard contraction of am not in some dialects of mainly Hiberno-English (Irish English) and Scottish English. In Hiberno-English the question form (amn’t I?) is used more frequently than the declarative I amn’t. (The standard I’m not is available as an alternative to I amn’t in both Scottish English and Hiberno-English.) An example appears in Oliver St. John Gogarty‘s impious poem The Ballad of Japing Jesus: “If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine, / He gets no free drinks when I’m making the wine”. These lines are quoted in James Joyce‘s Ulysses, which also contains other examples: “Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl?” (spoken by Cissy Caffrey to Leopold Bloom in Chapter 15).

The more standardized contraction aren’t seems to fill in the “amn’t gap” in questions: Aren’t I lucky to have you around? Although this form is universally used by Standard English speakers today, it was considered “illiterate” by some twentieth-century writers.

But how could amn’t become aren’t?

The form am not contracted into amn’t which, to simplify the pronunciation, became an’t. All happened because in non-rhotic* dialects, aren’t and the pronunciation of an’t are homophones, i.e. both are pronounced without the “r”. So it might be the case of a hypercorrection from non-rhotic dialect speakers that the form aren’t is used instead of an’t: thinking that where there isn’t a “r” we should insert one, people may have started to insert a “r” into an’t which lead to arn’t and by simplifying the pronunciation with an epenthetic e: aren’t, which, besides, already exists as form of the 2nd singular and plural forms of the verb to be and doesn’t sound “wrong”.

The spelling of “aren’t I” started to replace “an’t I” in the early 20th century, and some first examples of aren’t I for am I not appear already in the first half of the 19th century in St Martin’s Day from Holland-tide by Gerald Griffin in 1827: “aren’t I listening; and isn’t it only the breeze that’s blowing the sheets and halliards about?”

Today, the grammatical am I not? sounds stilted, ain’t I? is considered substandard and aren’t I ? is the standard solution adopted in practice by most speakers and taught in school.

*In non-rhotic dialects, the historical /r/ has been lost except before vowels; they include all the dialects of England—except the South West, the southern West Midlands, and parts of West Lancashire—as well as the English dialects of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some parts of the southern and eastern coastal United States.

More posts about historical linguistics will follow soon – also about Italian, French, German…

This is an extended version of an answer I gave to parents who asked me for advice about their 7 yo boy turning silent.

One or the biggest myths about bilingual children is that they are all like sponges and that they become fluent in no time…

Fact is, that during language aquisition, children go through different stages: Pre-production, Early Production, Speech Emergent, Beginning Fluency, Intermediate Fluency, Advanced Fluency.

When a child turns silent there is usually some reason. It can be one that seems minor to parents but is major for the child. – Maybe your child went through a major change during the last few months? Or anything else happened like:  you moved country, or your child is attending daycare or school in another language? What is important for any parent, teacher, speechtherapist etc. needs to know if the child stoped talking both (or all) languages at the same time, and what could have triggerd this reaction.

Studies observe that the nonverbal period is typically

1) shorter than 6 months,

2) common in 3-8 year olds and

3) longer in the younger child

(cfr. Tabors PO. One Child, Two Languages: A Guide for Preschool Educators of Children Learning English as a Second Language. Baltimore: Brookes; 1997.)

During this time a child needs time to acclimatise to the new context and to begin to tune into the sounds of all languages involved. He may start rehearsing the language(s) silently to himself and practice “private speech”. You would notice this when he plays by himself and lets toys talk. – He is probably processing the language internally and building up confidence to try out the language before “going public” again.

What you, your partner and everyone interacting with the child can do, is to reassure and encourage him by making him feel accepted member of the group/family/society.
I know that the pressure from society, family, friends, teachers (?) can be very hard on you and your child, but I really suggest that you entirely focus on his needs now. Let your child decide when he wants to interact with you.

Here are some suggestions about what you can do:

1. Continue talking even when your child does not respond verbally.
2. Try to include you child in small groups (1-2) with other children who speak the same language.
3. Use varied questions, especially open questions, where your child can’t only nodd or shake his head.
4. Include other children as the focus in the conversation.
5. Use the first language.
6. Accept non-verbal responses.
7. Praise minimal efforts, but not in an exaggerated way. If he says something or tries to say something, you can praise with a smile or by repeating what he said. This will comfort him.
8. You can try to sing more songs with him. Through music, rythm, the body can relax and if he may try to sing the tune too.
9. The practice through role play can be beneficial. too: let him choose a puppet or a toy and try to let him talk through it.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

When our children are second – or third, fourth etc – generation of international children, transmitting cultural heritage and language becomes a real challenge.

If your child is first international generation, i.e. you grew up in your home country

At the beginning you’ll think that talking more than the famous 20% of waking hours in your family language with your child will make him or her become a “perfectly balanced bilingual”. During the first years you will try to do your best to support your child’s bilingualism. You’ll organise playgroups, provide all sorts of books, audiobooks, videos etc. to make this language as interesting as possible.

When your child starts going to a school, you’ll opt either for a school in your family language (if this is possible) or a school where lessons are taught in another language, either the local one or a third one.

If your child attends school in your family language, he will hear and interact in your family language every day, but he will “only” learn vocabulary in the situations he experiences at school, i.e. during school hours and at recess. No slang will be learnt (unless other children at school know it and use it) because most of the schools wouldn’t allow the use of slang. This may not present any problem for the first school years, but when children realize that they don’t understand peers in their home countries or the countries their family language is spoken, they will feel excluded, alienated, not belonging.

Your child will grow up in a linguistic bubble. He won’t learn how to “live in that language” in every day situations and he’ll automatically build a selective vocabulary.

If you send your child to a school in another language, this other language will become more important than the family language as soon as your child makes the first friends in school. He will try to fit in, talk like his peers and therefore automatically consider the family language as less important, less “cool” and less interesting.

At this point you’ll realize that you need to make your family language more attractive. You try to link the language use to interesting topics and make it exciting for your child. You’ll notice that if your child has classmates who also talk the same family language as you do at home, and you invite those childern for a playdate, they will prefer the school language while playing together. You’ll try to intervene and set strict rules, which may work for a few years, but at some point, once you’re not in the same room, they’ll switch to the language they prefer. – You may or may not be ok with it, but that’s what happens naturally.

What can you do to make and keep the family language attractive? You’ll try to spend as much time as possible – usually almost all holidays! – in the country the language is spoken. Maybe with family, i.e cousins, occasional friends etc. And you’ll observe that after a few days or weeks your children will improve their language skills. They’ll learn the jargon, use the language in many different contexts you can’t usually provide at home. They experience full immersion and will literally dig into the other language and culture.

If you want to make sure that your child learns to interact in your family language in as many contexts as possible, you will need to provide opportunities for your child to use your language in diverse situations: in a shop, at the supermarket, in a train/bus/tram/plane, at a museum, cinema, with people on the street, at the beach… You will try to make your child experience a variety of “real life” situations, hoping that he learns that the same word can have multiple meanings depending on the contexts.

This will help your child increase his or her vocabulary, become more confident and competent.

Children need interactions with peers who speak the same language – preferably with monolinguals – in order to be more motivated.

If your child is second (or third) international generation, i.e. you grew up abroad already

If you already grew up using your family language in a restricted context (i.e. only at home or at home and at school) and you raise your children in the same family language, you will notice that you’ll make more effort than other parents who grew up in their home country, to support your child become fluent in your mother-(or father-) tongue. You will know about the benefits of using more than one language on a regular basis and being “perfectly fluent” in one language doesn’t seem so important anymore.

I realize this every time I talk with my German friends who seem not having any of the issues with their children like the one I have with mine to make them talk German at home. It may be because my children know that I speak several languages and they love talking other languages with me too, but we never talk one and only one language in our family.

My children speak a second-generation-German. They always try to blend in when on holidays in Germany and fortunately they have no language barriers. They are very outgoing and make friends easily. They read German books, know German songs and can converse in German, but I notice a big difference between them and German children whose parents grew up in Germany. They are not as confident talking German as these children. – Does this bother me? Not really. Why? Because my linguistic goal is for them to be able to speak, read and write German in an eloquent way, but it doesn’t need to be perfect.

When you raise your child in your mothertongue and you already grew up abroad, you will probably be a bilingual or multilingual. You will be aware that every situation where your child can talk your language and feel special and even proud to use that language is very valuable. You know that in order to keep them talking that language, they need to be praised for their effort. Why? Because if they talk that language they choose to do it. They don’t always need to choose that language because they share other languages with the people they normally talk to. So, whenever they have the opportunty to talk your family language, they need to be supported. I know by my own experience that if you get told that the language to talk sounds “funny” or strange, this can affect you so much that you avoid talking it – especially if this “someone” is a grown up, a teacher or someone you admire and you already feel that this language is difficult for some reason.

We all know that maintaining our mothertongue not only serves to transmit our heritage to our children and to build a bridge to our (extended) family, but also to build their confidence and help them find their identity. If their efforts are not acknowledged, they can easily feel frustrated and excluded. Therefore our second or third generation international children need all the support they can get from co-nationals to maintain their heritage language.

Related articles: What happens to second generation international children.