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)

 (“Constant dripping wears the stone”)

(updated 2020)

Raising bilingual children is not only a commitment which requires lots of energy to provide the regular inputs, maintain the passion for the language throughout all the years, but also requires a great amount of flexibility.

Several years ago, I wrote a post about the language choice we had to make within our family and how we managed to still keep up with the languages we didn’t talk on a regular basis.

When I stopped talking Italian to my son he was 4,5 years old. I honestly hoped that some day he would ask me to speak it with him again. Among my children he is the one who started earlier with reading and writing, and he is  very talented in languages (and literature in general).

A few years ago he had the opportunity to follow classes in Spanish and French and I was very pleased to see that he loved both of them.
We had very long discussions about the similar vocabulary, the difference in orthography and, of course, the analogies with Italian. This exposure to related languages made him realize that talking Italian is valuable too. It wasn’t the first time he heard those languages, but learning about them at school, in a setting with peers, made them apparently more valuable for him. – For me this was a very interesting aspect. I always thought that being exposed to a language in “real life”, i.e. during holidays and with friends would suffice to persuade somebody of the necessity to learn it. But the peer-pressure and the formal setting was the trigger for my son at this stage (11 yo).

I was immensely pleased when he asked me to talk Italian with him again; and he asked in Italian! I think that only parents whose children have not replied in the desired language for a long time can understand what this meant to me. These 6 words meant the world to me: “Vogliamo parlare in Italiano d’ora in poi?” It was the greatest gift he could give to me. – We now talk Italian in the weekends and occasionally when we are one-on-one. We both enjoy it very much!

This phase of re-introduction of Italian started 6 years ago and although my son does not read or write Italian regularly, and surely not up to a level of fluency that one could call nearly-native, and which was my initial plan, I am confident that should he ever need to improve his language skills, he has all he needs to succeed.

With this short “update”, I want to share that initial plans can change. It can be difficult to make a choice that meets the child’s needs, but there is always a chance to re-introduce a language later in life! We go through phases in all domains of life, also with regard to our languages.
My son is currently learning Chinese with his Chinese friend, which I wholeheartedly welcome and support! I am looking forward to seeing what the future of languages will bring!

****

When we “gave up” Italian and Swiss-German a few years ago, my husband and I were worried that this lack of consistency would affect the language acquisition of our children. We thought that they would not understand us talking German to them, that they would refuse replying to us in German and that they would forget those other languages and never be interested in them.

I think that the fact that those languages kept being important for my husband and me, that we still used them also in the presence of our children – while talking to friends etc. – and that we regularly visited our relatives who speak those languages, kept them easily accessible for them. Italian and Swiss-German are part of their language repertoire and they know that they can nurture them whenever they want.

I’m convinced that the consistent passive exposure to these other languages helped our children to still have “a good rapport” to them.

Like if the door to access those languages was always open. This not only happened for Italian, but also for Swiss-German for our son, which he talks with great confidence and the right intonation while talking to his Swiss-German family.

The fact that our children would not actively use them on a regular basis does not prevent them to use and learn them at any later stage in their lives. – I know by my own experience that this can happen.

“We can plant different seeds, water them, expose them to sun, but can’t predict how fast they grow and when they will come to fruition.”

The Dutch language belongs to the westgerman branch of the indoeuropean languages and is actually close to German (and Swissgerman).

The simplified relation between the languages Dutch, English and German. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For many foreigners the pronunciations of “Scheveningen” or “Gouda” are a challenge. It’s especially the way the <ch> and the intervocalic <g> is pronounced that creates some articulatory problems. For Swissgermans the voiceless velar fricative <g> [x] or [?] for the <ch> or the uvular fricative [?] are very well known. They sound similar to the German in “ach”, “Bach”, “Fach” etc.. Therefore this is not something Germans or Swissgermans would find difficult to pronounce. In the southern Dutch dialects these sounds are softer and <g> and <ch> represent the palatal fricatives ([?] and [ç]).

Something I personally found important to learn are the false cognates or false friends. People already fluent in German when learning Dutch, need to be aware of words that are phonetically similar and sometimes even have similar roots but are different in meanings:

The Dutch aandacht means “Aufmerksamkeit” (attention) in German, and the German “Andacht” means “devotion”.

The zetel is a seat and not a saddle (German “Sattel”), the winkel is a shop (“Laden”) and not an angle, like in German.

With vaart you don’t design the journey or trip (“Fahrt”), but only boat trip and varen refers to the movement of ships only.

Tot is not “tot” (dead) but only means “until” and is pronounced with a short /o/ (whereas the german “tot” has a long one /o:/.

A postbus is not a public means of transportation but a P.O. box (“Postfach”).

The kwartier is not a quarter or accomodation (germ.”Quartier”) but defines a quarter of an hour; and it’s often used in its diminutive form kwartiertje.

Glazuur has nothing to do with baking (germ.”Glasur”; icing) but is dental enamel (“Zahnschmelz”).

“Blaffen“ does not mean to snap at someone, like the German “anblaffen” but the barking of the dog. In German this way to snap is comparable to the barking of a dog though and both words have the same etymon. When a Dutch says that he’s going to call you on the phone, i.e. bellen (ik ga je bellen), which is the abbreviated form for opbellen, or ring at your door, a German would think that this person would bark at him (germ. bellen). For an English speaking person it doesn’t seem too weird, as the English bell (noun) is producing a similar sound although the English verb to bell has a different meaning i.e. the semantic fields for the Dutch bell and the English one are slightly different.

The sale signs for houses and flats puzzle every German speaking person who visits the Netherlands for the first time: te huur (which means “to rent”) seems very similar “to whore” (“huren” in German), but once you learn that <uu> is pronounced like [y?] you’ll get over it. A similar misunderstanding could occur with the verkocht sign, when a property is sold, since it really sounds like the word for “overcooked” in German (“verkocht”).

Te huur in Huizen (Photo credit: CorporatieNL)

Verkocht onder voorbehoud (Photo credit: the_riel_thing)

What were the analogies or similarities you found between German and Dutch? Or another language you know and Dutch?

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*****

Ute Limacher has recently published a series of excellent articles on Switzerland, its different cantons, languages and history. To add another perspective to these, I have been asked to write down some thoughts and experiences on this country I call ‘home’ since over 6 years now. Exactly as Ute herself, I have also been living between and in different cultures since early childhood, thus identifying myself with various cultural groups and sets of behaviors.

I would like to take this particular opportunity to write about something that from my perspective and seen through my intercultural communication glasses is quite interesting and astonishing: the “Röstigraben”. Actually, as you have learned from Ute already, there are 4 main languages spoken in Switzerland and the so-called “Röstigraben”, which is a rather informal term, actually defines the “divide” between the Swiss German speakers and the French speakers.

I myself was actually lucky enough to have experienced these two different sides of Switzerland, having lived in Zurich as well as in the Romandy in Lausanne. If you speak French and you have a couple of spare moments, you should listen to Marie-Thérèse Porchet’s geography lesson. Not only is it hilarious, but it will also give you a better feel and understanding of what it is like to live in Switzerland and where the differences lie.

At first, when I arrived in Switzerland I thought it was funny to give a name to something rather fictive such as the imagined ‘border’ between cultural differences. Especially for me, who grew up in Belgium with its three official languages and where to my knowledge no such terminology exists, it had never occurred that it could actually have a name and would be very distinct. The truth is that you learn quite quickly that there really is a “Graben” (or trench, ditch in English). You just have to search the Internet to find many different articles on the subject.

If you are living in Switzerland, you can also hop in the train in any French speaking town, like Lausanne for example and travel towards Bern (or the other way round of course). Whereas you will see French newspapers on the seat and hear mostly French in all the wagons, suddenly and subtly this will change. Newspapers left over are now German and people speak Swiss German. Every time I take the train this strikes me, maybe because I speak the different languages but maybe also because it kind of happens all of the sudden; there is no real mix of languages and people as it would be like in Belgium before one or the other language dominates the atmosphere. It simply goes from French to German or from German to French.

Interestingly, it also appears to be very difficult for people to jump over the “Röstigraben” to visit friends, go on holidays or simply spend time. I have to admit that many acquaintances I used to see when living in Zurich, I don’t see anymore on a regular basis just because I now live in a French speaking canton. You would think that 250 Km is not far, but from a cultural standpoint it actually makes a major difference.

In my professional life, I have even heard people say that they did a “semester abroad” while studying. What they really meant here was that they simply went to the other side of Switzerland to study. How interesting is that?!

I personally think that these differences are very enriching and see a great benefit in being able to switch from one language to the other and from one culture to the other in the same country. Maybe this also gives a good idea of what it is like to live in Europe, where all of the cultures, languages etc. co-exist on a rather small continent (compared to others) without borders and mainly with a common currency. Food for thought! Jenny

[©LECLERC, Jacques, La frontière linguistique en Suisse, Québec, TLFQ, Université Laval, 4 avril 2013, [http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/europe/suisse_front-lng.htm]]

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Some time ago I read an interesting article from a mum raising multilingual children in a multicultural environment. She told her multilingual mothering story in a very positive and encouraging way.

I would like to encourage mothers, fathers, caregivers to not be afraid to speak several languages with their children. If you are bi- or multilingual yourself: don’t be afraid to make your kids become part of your multicultural world.

As a multilingual mum, I know how enriching it is to call several cultures and languages your own. “There is nothing better in life than understanding other cultures from the inside, including their sense of humor and their way of thinking. The more languages you speak, the more you are able to find yourself in the right place and situation” (I quote the author of the post).

My multicultural experience started when I was born. My German parents lived in Italy, so Italian and German were the first two languages I was exposed to since the beginning. German was our family language and Italian was the language we spoke with locals, with Italian friends and with those who didn’t understand German. There was never any question about not learning Italian, neither for my mum, nor for us children.

And this were the late sixties early seventies! There were no lessons for adults at that time, so my mother learned Italian thanks to TV, radio and daily contact with locals. She is a very skilled and curious learner. I think she passed this passion on to my sister and me. She never questioned the utility of the languages she learned. I remember that at the age of 4 I once came home cross after having played with our neighbours’ boy, complaining about him not wanting to learn German. He was a bit older than my sister and taught us songs, rhymes etc. and I was upset because he refused to learn German songs or rhymes from me. I couldn’t understand why he was talking always Italian with us and why he wouldn’t talk German too, like we did.

My mum told me that we were guests in this country and that we were supposed to learn the language of our hosts. Not the other way round. Or at least, if our hosts didn’t want to learn our language, we didn’t have to insist or feel upset about this. – This made perfectly sense to me. Even if later some of my Italian friends were more likely to learn German, I still think my mum taught me what it means to be an immigrant.

I learned German and Italian simultaneously, since the beginning. My parents only spoke German and our babysitter only spoke Italian with us. I can’t remember when I started to talk Italian, but it was pretty much at the same time I started to talk German. The 3rd language, French, followed at school, when I was 6, the 4th, English, when I was 11. I had Dutch friends in school and picked up some typical expressions and ended up liking this language too. At age 13 I took Latin classes until age 17. The 6th language I acquired was Swiss-German at age 20 – but I already understood Swiss-German because I watched a Swiss-German TV channel from age 4-6 (alas it wasn’t possible after that) and when we traveled through Switzerland and the Swiss-German part of it when visiting family in Germany once or twice per year. We also spent some holidays in the Western part of German speaking Switzerland (Wallis).

I never took Swiss-German lessons: I just repeated what locals said and fully immersed into the Schwiitzertüütsch. During my studies in Zurich I learned Spanish through texts, learned Old Provencal and Old French, as well as several Italian, French and German dialects and regional variants.

I learned the following language, Dutch, at age 38, which I also read and write, and which allows me to understand also Flemish and other local dialects. I had the opportunity to briefly dive into Norwegian, which I seem to understand, and am currently learning Korean as an autodidact.

———

As some parents are very concerned about their teenage children refusing to talk a minority language at some point, I would like to reassure them: bilinguals or multilinguals will always have one or two dominant languages, depending on their personal preferences, the language(s) their friends (peers) speak, their work environment etc.

If someone learns a language and attains a good or very good proficiency in it but then stops using this language in his daily life, he will always be able to reactivate it at any time if needed.

I used not to talk German every day for several years when I was in my twenties, and ended up doing lots of code-switching with people I knew were able to understand the other language I was mixing it with (Italian); but with a bit of effort, I managed to make full sentences again. Today, German is our family language, as well as Swiss-German and Italian.

I speak at least two or three languages of my languages per day, and read or write in the other ones. As I tend to say: I am all my languages and I feel the most complete when I get to use them all in a day!

Are you a multilingual parent as well? What is your experience with your languages?

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