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How Many Native Tongues are Possible? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Qaanaaq Newbie United States Joined 4122 days ago 14 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 14 20 August 2013 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know a girl who grew up in the United States, with a Cuban mother and an Israeli father. She spoke Spanish to
her mother, Hebrew to her father, and English in school, and is thus natively-trilingual. This got me thinking: how many native tongues are possible? Say you have a Spanish-speaking mother and Hebrew-speaking father, English-speaking nanny, and grow up in Switzerland speaking French and German, and go to children's language summer camps yearly from the time you are young, in Turkey or something, and have many Turkish-speaking friends back home in der Schweiz. Would it be technically be possible to have six native languages? Especially if you use them everyday or almost everyday, I don't see why not. Or is there a point where they all just blur together and accents/grammar/vocabulary becomes a horrible mess? Or will one or two clearly dominate, and the others become more subordinate? I realize the definitions of "native" and "fluent" are fluid, but I think we know what I mean here: the ability to hold a conversation without people thinking that you have "formally studied" their language, being able to read a newspaper/book, watch a film without subtitles, etc, basically be able to live and think in the language without difficulty Edited by Qaanaaq on 20 August 2013 at 6:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Ford Groupie United States Joined 4741 days ago 65 posts - 101 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 2 of 14 20 August 2013 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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The prevailing opinion in the US, which is only now finally fading away, has been that you can't have more than one native language or else your linguistic development will be stunted. Obviously this is not the case, and from my experiences it's obviously possible for people to be equally fluent, articulate, and well educated in several native languages.
On the other hand, although there are many people who are conversant in numerous languages that they grew up with (and have a native pronunciation and grasp of grammar), the issue starts to become one of lack of exposure to different concepts in their additional languages. For example, there are many people in the US who can perfectly speak a home/family version of Spanish but aren't able to talk about science, politics, history, etc. in Spanish, because their formal education was in English. I think that's where the issues start to appear in raising a child who is equally adept in many languages - they kind of have to relearn concepts and balance their education and media intake in all the languages, which isn't always realistic for a child, so naturally there will be some holes in their abilities. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 14 20 August 2013 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think if you go to a summer camp as a kid it won't become a native language. I thought about this and I think the maximum is ~four languages. Parents speak different languages natively, communicate with each other in English as a "neutral" language and the fourth is the language of the country the kid lives in. That would be the maximum amount of manageable languages in my opinion, unless all languages were very close to each other. Like, the child has a Danish mother, a Dutch father and they lived in Germany, parents spoke English with each other and then they would often visit relatives in, say, Norway. Edited by Henkkles on 20 August 2013 at 7:11pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 14 20 August 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Knew someone with 5.
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| JiEunNinja Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4202 days ago 64 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 14 20 August 2013 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did some research awhile back on a similar topic. The scientific consensus is that a
child needs to hear the language around 30% of his or her waking life to speak a language fluently/natively. So the max is usually put at about four. But usually a multilingual child doesn't speak all the languages equally as well, so one could argue that they aren't really native languages. Every child is so different, it's hard to pin down. Also I've heard that a lot of scientists will consider a child a native speaker if they learned the language to fluency without an accent before puberty. So the number could then be higher. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6657 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 6 of 14 20 August 2013 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps the number of possible native languages depends on your idea of what a native speaker is. Certainly it is possible to be exposed to six languages on a frequent basis as a very young child and become pretty fluent in each of them, but how likely is it for such a child to be equally comfortable in all of them?
If I look at Qaanaaq's example, I can't help but wonder how long such a person would be able to maintain all of those languages at a native or near-native level. Even people who grow up with only one language for a number of years may be capable of forgetting all or much of that language. So I tend not to think so often in terms of native languages but a person's default language. In which language do you perform mental arithmetic? If I were to wake you up in the middle of the night, in which language would your immediate first words or thoughts be? Which language are you most comfortable in? In which languages do you have your most intimate and relaxed conversations? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 14 20 August 2013 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my experience, very long. As long as there is continued use of that language.
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| casamata Senior Member Joined 4260 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 8 of 14 20 August 2013 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
True that. The more languages you add, and I doubt that language knowledge is synergistic, the less proficient you will be at each individual language. You could have a child with 5 or 6 native languages but they won't have the same abilities in each language, just not possible. Will the child know all the slang, terms for politics, sports, science, whatever in each language. Well, no. Will they be very close to their monolingual classmates? Probably. But let's think about it logically. If one identical twin studies a PhD in biology while his identical twin studies a PhD in biology, chemistry, and mathematics, who will be better in bio? Assuming equal variables in terms of hard work and environment (genetically they are identical), I would sure as heck bet on the twin specializing in one PhD in biology. If you specialize in one thing like one language, you will be better than the guy that spreads himself thin amongst 5 languages, all other factors being equal. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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