Can You Lose Your Mother Tongue?
If you were given the option to start over the next year with a blank slate and no memory of your past life, you wouldn’t accept it. None of us would want to give up our memory even if it means getting rid of the negative thoughts. It is what makes us who we are, and without our memory, we will not be the same. It is a fundamental part of our personality. All the things we learn in life, we do so with the help of our memory. We store all our experiences in our mind and then use that information to change our behaviors.
What is the Mother Tongue?
One of the earliest memories of people is their mother tongue. It is the first language they are exposed to as a baby. It can be different from the language you learn at school. It is a baby’s first introduction to the spoken word. They hear poems and lullabies in the same tongue. Due to forming a connection with the tongue at such an early age, it becomes an important part of a person’s identity. People think of their mother tongue as something that connects them to their roots. They love and respect their culture and languages.
The joy people feel when they find someone who can speak their mother tongue in a foreign land is unmatchable. They want to be able to speak their tongue wherever they want so they can stay connected to their culture. The native speakers understand their language better than anyone else. They are the ones people rely on when a translation of a language is required because they understand their vernacular in the best way possible. A person will learn many things throughout their life, but the memory of their mother tongue will always be one of the most important lessons.
What is the meaning of mothers tongue?
Mother tongue is the language that a person has been exposed to since their birth because it is spoken by everyone in their home. It is known by this name because it is the language of a person’s mother. Since everyone has a special relationship with their mothers, they adopt this language pretty quickly.
What is mother tongue and example?
Mother tongue is the first language that a person learns after being born. They get exposed to it in their home. It is the language that a person is fluent in because they listen to their parents speak in it since their birth. A common example of a mother tongue for someone born in the US will be English.
What is the difference between first language and mother tongue?
There is no significant difference between a first language and a mother tongue in most societies. But in some countries, the mother tongue is the language a person learns at home from their parents and the first language is the one they learn at school or from the society. This difference is apparent in the lives of immigrant kids.
What is the mother tongue of India?
India is a multilinguistic country, which is why only 26% of the country’s population speaks Hindi as their mother tongue. Other languages in the country like Rajasthani, Bengali, Bhojpuri, and Gujarati are spoken as the mother tongue. Hindi is the official language in the country and is spoken by less than half of the population.
What are the advantages of using mother tongue?
- Better understanding of the society. If children speak and understand the language spoken around them, they will be able to understand their community in a better way.
- Improved Education: If mother tongue is used as the medium of education, it will improve enrollment rates and parents’ involvement in the education process. This will improve the studies of the child.
What is the disadvantage of mother tongue?
- Limiting: If mother tongue is the only medium of education, it can limit the learning process of children. It will keep them from learning new languages.
- Lack of Opportunities: If people continue to use their mother tongue, they will not be able to avail of many opportunities like getting a job in a multinational company.
Why is first language important?
First language is very important because it helps people in establishing a connection with their community. They can understand their culture in a much better way if they are familiar with their first language. It is also important for the identity of a person and allows them to develop an understanding of their self.
What are the advantages of studying in your home language?
- Increased Understanding: Students find it easier to understand difficult concepts if they are in their own language. They can grasp complex ideas if the wording is clear to them.
- Involvement of Parents: When the home language is the medium of education, parents find it easier to get involved with the studies of their child. Their increased interest will improve the performance of their kid.
The Role of the Mother Tongue:
Language plays a critical role in our life. It helps us think and formulate our ideas into words. Without it, we will not be able to convey our thoughts and feelings to others. So, the first language people learn shapes their thought patterns. It also affects their behavior. Each vernacular has a different type of tone, and that ends up affecting the behavior of its speaker. All the languages are representatives of their cultures, and that’s why they bring with them a set of ideas and beliefs. This is why people change when they learn a new language. They start adjusting to a new culture, and that ends up affecting them too.
Can You Lose Your Mother Tongue?
When people settle down in a foreign country, they have to adjust to a new culture. They also have to learn a new language. When people learn new things, that information ends up pushing their previous knowledge to the back of their brains. The older information loses its importance. People continue to speak a language in order to communicate with the ones around them. But when they do not have to speak a tongue in order to survive in a society, they start losing it.
However, the answer to the question of whether people can lose their mother tongue is not a straightforward one. There are a lot of factors involved in this. One of the factors is time. The longer you stay away from your native land and continue to speak a second language, the greater the chances of you forgetting your mother tongue. However, time may not affect your memory if you find a community of native speakers of your mother tongue in a foreign country, and you regularly engage in conversations with them.
This is why students are told by their teachers to revise a lesson they have already learned, so it stays fresh in their memory. If you continue to speak in your mother tongue, even when you are in a foreign country, you won’t lose it. However, if your memory of your first language is associated with trauma and you are a warzone survivor, you may want to forget everything related to your past. Such psychological factors can play a huge role in shaping your memory.
Age is another factor that affects memory. Children are more likely to lose their mother tongue if they move to a different country and start learning a new language. Adults, on the other hand, will not lose knowledge of their culture. They will stay connected to their roots throughout their lives. One of the translator requirements is that the linguistic expert must be a native speaker of the target language. However, it is also worth noting that a native speaker may have lost their memory of their language. They may stop being an expert at it. As a result, they might not be great at their job.
A lot of people lose touch with their culture and end up becoming fluent in their second language while giving up on their mother tongue completely. It is up to the agencies that when they are offering translator jobs, they make sure that the applicants are native speakers who are still in touch with their mother tongue. If someone is still connected to their roots and can speak their language fluently, they are the right candidate. But those that haven’t spoken their tongue for more than five minutes in years will not be the ideal choice for the job of a translator.
