ES lengua materna / CAT llengua materna / FR langue maternelle / DE Muttersprache

The mother tongue is the language acquired during childhood through interaction with surrounding adults. The learning of the mother tongue and the development of the faculty of verbal language are the same and a unique process.

Another term for the same reality is that of native language (native speaker of a language), and both terms are usually opposed to that of foreign language. In the sociology of language, the terms native languages and vernacular languages are used to refer to the languages shared by members of communities in which other languages coming from other communities (generally more developed or colonizing) are being spoken. In the schools of contemporary multilingual societies, where students from very diverse linguistic and geographical backgrounds live side by side, the language of a student’s family—if it is not one which is taught at school—is usually called a non-curricular family language, or also language of origin.

In order to be more precise about naming this language, alternatives to mother tongue have been proposed, since the infant’s mother (‘infant’, etymologically, ‘not speaking’) is not necessarily the only interlocutor nor the most frequent one during the language acquisition process; other family members or caregivers may play a similarly important role. Also, given that the language acquisition process may involve two (or even more) languages at the same time, the term ‘bilingualism as a mother tongue’ has been coined. In the field of language teaching, the expression first language or language 1 (L1) is normally used as an alternative.

Independently of its denomination, a person’s mother tongue is essential in several ways: it is the language in which one first builds meaning in one’s relation to the world, and it gives a feeling of identity and belonging to a community. The mother tongue also functions as the springboard from which additional languages may be learned because it provides the fundamental knowledge and experience about the use of language. However, its phonetic-phonological and morphosyntactic systems may interfere negatively in the development of those of the new language. In that regard, early bilingualism seems to confer great advantages for overcoming some of these difficulties, such as the creation and elaboration of a rich linguistic repertoire.

References

• Durk Gorter y Jasone Cenoz (2016). “Language education policy and multilingual assessment”, Language and Education, 31(3), 231-248, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2016.1261892
• Pattanayak, D. P. (sin fecha). «Mother tongues: the problem of definition and the educational challenge». En Ouane, A. (Ed.). Towards a Multilingual Culture of Education. Hamburgo: The UNESCO Institute for Education. http://www.unesco.org/education/uie/pdf/uiestud41.pdf