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Bilingual ? | ||
Tags: Diglossia | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 17 of 36 16 April 2010 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sido, Kollegah, Sinan, Azad, Fler, B-Tight, Tony D, Automatik :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ChristianVlcek Bilingual Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5851 days ago 131 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Slovak*, Ukrainian, Irish, German, Russian | Message 18 of 36 16 April 2010 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Which means that being "native" has little or nothing to do with one's ability to speak effectively in a language, but deals only with one's birth into a language. I'll just throw in a short example. My uncle's first language is Serbo–Croatian. He learned English in his early 20s, and has attained a perfectively native level of speaking (he understands and can reproduce, idioms, slang, and full neuances, atd.), one which surpasses most "natives". Cases like that lead me to believe that the distinction between "native" and "non–native" can be utterly irrlelvant. While the linguists of the world may argue with me until they're blue in the face, as far as I'm concerned a netive is anyone who speaks the language to a native level, whether it is their "native" language or not. Just my 0.02€. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5448 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 19 of 36 16 April 2010 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I do not really see a need for a big fuss about this :). your native language (or languages) is the one that you
have learned from your environment, straight from the state of not knowing any other language fully (or those languages that you have learned in parallel, in these circumstances) ... language/languages that have formed those first 'language connections' in your brain (and we know that brain stores L1 and other languages separately) . However, if we are talking about 'native fluency', that is a different story - that is a description of a level, anyone can achieve that, regardless of their 'native' status. no matter how good I speak English one day - it cannot be my native language :). to speak L2,L3...to a native level is great achievement, but that is exactly what it is: native level, not a native language. I am not a linguist and cannot say what is the age limit for picking up the second (or third) language as a native - I guess that a 3yo child that gets into the environment of a new language will be a native speaker, while 10yo child will not, but where exactly is this border, I have no idea :). It would be interesting to hear about this from some linguist. I think that designations on this websites are a bit confusing - bilingual is not very precise if we know that there is primary and secondary bilingualism. probably 'native bilingual' would be a better choice. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 20 of 36 16 April 2010 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks for the names :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| global_gizzy Senior Member United States maxcollege.blogspot. Joined 5703 days ago 275 posts - 310 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 36 17 April 2010 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Being FLUENT and being NATIVE are two different things.
If you are to the point that you can have a conversation on the fly with anyone one, on oh....50+ topics, I'd and use good grammar and understand even...20% of the words you don't know, just because your competent with the language and can properly infer what is meant...then I'd say your fluent in a language. However, if you learn a language at 8 you can definitely be fluent in it, you can say you are Bilingual, but if anyone's obnoxious enough to demand specifics you'd better be able to admit that your Bilingual, but not native bilingual. There are native multilingual, but no matter how good I may become in Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and/or Esperanto, I will never be a native multilingual speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 22 of 36 17 April 2010 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The forum has a distinction between "native language" and "native fluency."
The former refers to one's first language, one's "mother tongue." This is the language (or languages) that you learned when you were very, very young. This is usually the language your family speaks to you in and/or the main language of your community (especially if it was the language you were educated in). For example, I have a friend whose family is Hmong and so she grew up speaking Hmong until entering school around five-years-old. At this point, she learned English from immersion and is in my opinion indistinguishable from a native. She could be considered as having two native languages, Hmong and English. The latter refers to a person who can speak a language to the same level as a native, but is not native. In regards to their impeccable English, many of the German and Scandinavian members of this forum are prime examples of this. No matter how well you speak the foreign language, it will never become your native language, but you can attain native fluency. Part of this, though, is subjective and depends on how you regard your own personal situation. I could possibly be considered as having English and Spanish and/or Greek as my native languages. English is my true native language, but I've been exposed to Greek for my whole life, have a native accent, and native intuition of what sounds correct, but do not actually speak it nearly as well. In fact, my English is often influenced by my Greek because it seems more natural to say something that way ("close the lights"). For Spanish, I entered into a bilingual-immersion elementary school when I was five, and over half of my primary education was conducted in Spanish. As such, I again have a native accent and intuition of speaking. Up until now, I have not pondered much the idea of listing Spanish and Greek as native languages on here as well, although I think that there is a valid case for both of them. What do others here think? Edited by ellasevia on 19 April 2010 at 1:14am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 23 of 36 19 April 2010 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It seems logical to me to differenciate between "native language" and "native fluency". I am born in Norway in a Norwegian family, but lived alone for 6 months in a Spanish family in Andalucía when I was 11, and for a year in a French family in Orleans when I was 14.
After my stay in Spain, Spaniards who heard me speak Spanish, would refuse to believe I was not Spanish, in spite of my blonde hair and my blue eyes. I would even speak more grammatically correct then my Spanish friends. That does however not make Spanish my native language, but I speak it "with "native fluency". In France I was also subject to a total immersion in the extreme, and was absolutely fluent in French without any trace of an accent - but it is still not a native language.(Particularly because a lot has been forgotten over the years). I have worked with English on a daily basis my entire life, and I have read English texts since the age of 10. I do not really care if I read English or Norwegian. That still does nok make it my native language. Is it however that important to use that particular label? In my book, if you are a native speaker, you have learned the language from a very early age. To be a native speaker doesn't actually really mean that you have studied the language. It must be something that has come to you naturally, without any effort on your side. I can understand that you can have 2-3 native languages if you have grown up in a family where more that one language is spoken, or if you have two languages in your family, and you have learned the third language in the kindergarden. I find it puzzling how anyone can claim to have a dead language like Latin, or a constructed language like Esperanto as their mother tongue. Shouldn't it really be even more prestigious to have acquired native fluency, without being a native speaker? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 24 of 36 20 April 2010 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually I believe there are some people whose native language (or one of whose native languages) is Esperanto... 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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