Talk:First language

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Contents 1 Early unsectioned discussion 2 Vernacular 3 First Language, Native Language, Mother Tongue 4 Linguist SME's and copyeditors needed 5 First Language, Mother Tongue and Number of Speakers of L

[edit] Early unsectioned discussion

Good skills in eyour native lanaguage are essential for further learning, as native language is thought to be a base of thinking. Incomplete first language skills often make learning other languages difficult. Native language has therefore a central role in education.

--This seems to be a restatement of the discredited Sapir Whorf hypothesis.

The article on Sapir-Whorf hypothesis gives some research results that support it. The hypothesis can't be discredited. -Hapsiainen 19:41, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

OK, but it's a minority view. I think that needs to be mentioned.

Detrimental effects of incomplete mother tongue skills can hardly be characterized as "minority views", although the Sapir Whorf hypothesis may be considered controversial. --Johan Magnus 08:35, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Of course, there are detrimental effects of incomplete mother tongue skills (although examples of persons with incomplete mother toungue skills are rare--it's usually the case that the person considered to have incomplete fist language skills just speaks a nonstandard dialect). It's the claim that not having complete native language skills affects a person's ability to think (as opposed to that person's ability to express his thoughts) that is a minority view. -- Temtem 17:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If whoever added the part on Altenhofen happens to see this, could you cite the specific work? I'm interested in looking him up for an unrelated project, and would like to know what work this occurs in.

[edit] Vernacular

I have removed vernacular in the brackets after first language, as the two are not the same. A simple look at the vernacular page reveals that. Someone's native language is not automatically a vernacular. JREL 15:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Language, Native Language, Mother Tongue

According to the first sentence of this article, these three terms are treated as equivalence to each other, however someone believes there are still subtle differences among these three terms. Could anyone clarify the doubt? -- G.S.K.Lee 09:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I know a girl from Argentina. The first language she learned to speak was Spanish. So that's her native language or mother tongue. However, she's lived in the US most of her life and is now actually more comfortable with English than Spanish, making English her first language, in that it's the one she's most skilled with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.182.49 (talk) 12:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linguist SME's and copyeditors needed

I was just about to link to this article, but it hardly meets start quality status, and has been ignored for a long time. I am not really interested in working on this article - can't we get some volunteers?Vontrotta (talk) 12:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First Language, Mother Tongue and Number of Speakers of L

The basic premise that only First language speakers can be counted as being completely competent in any language because fluency cannot be accurately measured in second language users is completely wrong. If fluency cannot be accurately measured in second language users, then why should it be measurable in First language users? The point is that any criteria used in measuring language competency may be applied to both First and Second language users. On the other hand, if there are no valid criteria for measuring competency and fluency, then the original premise does not stand. In other words, if we can’t measure fluency and competency, then we can’t do it in either first or second language users.

I know Bengali people in the UK that are totally fluent in English. I have met these people and their second language is indistinguishable from native speakers.
WillMall (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC). WillMall (talk) 09:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Which is the correct way to count the number of speakers of a language? Using FL, SL or ML? A combination of all 3? None of the above? WillMall (talk) 09:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)