大學捷徑

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A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language or are the languages a person has learned from birth[1] or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity[citation needed]. In some countries, the terms native language or mother tongue refer to the language of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language.[2] Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, and be bilingual.

On multilingualism

One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which these languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, if a French-speaking couple have a child who learned French first but then the child grew up in an English-speaking country, they would likely be most proficient in English. Other examples are India, The Philippines, Singapore, and South Africa, where most people speak more than one language.

The designation "native language" is in its general usage thought to be imprecise and subject to various interpretations that are biased linguistically, especially with respect to bilingual children from ethnic minority groups. Many scholars[citation needed] have given definitions of 'native language' through the years based on common usage, the emotional relation of the speaker towards the language, and even its dominance in relation to the environment. However, all of these criteria lack precision. For many children whose home language differs from the language of the environment (the 'official' language), it is debatable which language is one's 'native language'. Brazilian linguist Cléo Altenhofen cites his own experience as a bilingual speaker of Portuguese and Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, a German-rooted language brought to southern Brazil by the first German immigrants