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A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term native language or mother tongue refers to the language or dialect of one's ethnic group rather than the individual's actual first language. Generally, to state a language as a mother tongue, one must have full native fluency in that language.
Language immersion, or simply immersion, is a technique used in bilingual language education in which two languages are used for instruction in a variety of topics, including math, science, or social studies. The languages used for instruction are referred to as the L1 and the L2 for each student, with L1 being the student's native language and L2 being the second language to be acquired through immersion programs and techniques. There are different types of language immersion that depend on the age of the students, the classtime spent in L2, the subjects that are taught, and the level of participation by the speakers of L1.
Monoglottism or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. In a different context, "unilingualism" may refer to a language policy which enforces an official or national language over others.
Ziad Youssef Fazah is a Liberian-born Lebanese alleged polyglot. Fazah has claimed to speak 59 languages and maintains that he has proved this in several public appearances in which he supposedly communicated with native speakers of a large number of foreign languages. Fazah decided to study languages after encountering Armenians in Lebanon and learning Armenian. He currently lives in Brazil, having lived there since 1971.
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Multilingualism is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the Government of Singapore to encourage the Chinese Singaporean population to speak Standard Mandarin Chinese, one of the four official languages of Singapore. Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council, the SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin.
The languages of Australia are the major historic and current languages used in Australia and its offshore islands. Over 250 Australian Aboriginal languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact. English is the majority language of Australia today. Although English has no official legal status, it is the de facto official and national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling.
A multitude of languages are used in Singapore. They consist of several varieties of languages under the families of the Austronesian, Dravidian, Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages. The Constitution of Singapore says the national language of Singapore is Malay. This plays a symbolic role, as Malays are constitutionally recognised as the indigenous peoples of Singapore, and it is the government's duty to protect their language and heritage. The constitution also states that the four commonly used languages of Singapore are English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, with the lingua franca between Singaporeans of different races being English, the de facto main language. Singaporeans often speak Singlish among themselves. Singlish is an informal, colloquial form of English that is used in Singapore. Linguists define it as Singapore Colloquial English.
Language proficiency is the ability of an individual to use language with a level of accuracy which transfers meaning in production and comprehension.
Livemocha was an online language learning community based in Seattle, Washington. It provided instructional materials in 38 languages and a platform for speakers to interact with and help each other learn new languages. According to the site, it had approximately 12 million registered members from 196 countries around the globe. It was free to join and use; however, it offered the option to pay for various benefits. In 2012, 400,000 users visited the site daily.
Chinese languages, mostly Cantonese, are collectively the third most-spoken language in the United States, and are mostly spoken within Chinese-American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, especially in California and New York. Around 2004, over 2 million Americans spoke varieties of Chinese, with Mandarin becoming increasingly common due to immigration from mainland China and to some extent Taiwan. Within this category, approximately one third of respondents described themselves as speaking Cantonese or Mandarin specifically, with the other two thirds answering "Chinese", despite the lack of mutual intelligibility between different varieties of Chinese. This phenomenon makes it more difficult to readily identify the relative prevalence of any single Chinese language in the United States.
Language power (LP) is a measure of one's ability to communicate effectively in a given language, specifically one that is not native to the speaker.
Brendan Richard Lewis is an Irish author and blogger who defines himself as a "technomad language hacker". He is best known for his website Fluent in 3 Months, on which he documents personal attempts to learn languages within short time periods, typically three months.
Ioannis Ikonomou is a Greek translator who has been working for the European Commission in Brussels since 2002. Considered a notable contemporary example of a polyglot, he knows 32 living languages including Greek, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Finnish, Danish, Russian, Swahili, Hebrew, Arabic, Mandarin and Bengali, and reportedly as many as 47 languages including dead languages like Old Church Slavonic. He speaks 21 out of 24 official EU languages. He considers the Mandarin language as the most complicated language to learn. Chinese is also his favorite language. He is the only in-house translator of the European Commission who is trusted to translate classified Chinese documents.
Richard Simcott is a British polyglot who lives in Skopje, North Macedonia. He speaks 16 languages fluently. HarperCollins referred to him as "One of the most multilingual people from the United Kingdom". Besides the languages that he exhibits fluency in, he has also actively studied more than 50 languages at some point in his career.
Marilyn W. Atkinson is the founder and President of Erickson Coaching International. She is a speaker, coach, Master coach trainer, Master NLP trainer, writer, designer of coach training program The Art & Science of Coaching Atkinson was a student of Milton Erickson, and it was his mentorship and guidance that inspired her to name the company after him.
Steve Kaufmann is a Canadian polyglot, YouTuber, and Co-founder of the language learning platform LingQ. He is also the father of political scientist Eric Kaufmann and ice hockey player Mark Kaufmann.
Moses Monweal McCormick, also known as Laoshu or Laoshu505000, was an American YouTuber and language coach.
Arieh Smith, better known as Xiaomanyc or simply Xiaoma, is an American YouTuber and polyglot, best known for his videos where he speaks various languages with people from different cultures. The New York Times credited his channel as one of the most popular polyglot YouTube channels. He has been profiled in news publications such as The Independent, The Indian Express, and The Daily Dot.
References
- ↑ Boehm, David A.; and Maris Cakars, Cyd Smith, Jim Benagh (1984). Guinness Book of World Records 1985. Sterling Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0806902647
- ↑ Nikulicheva, D.B. (2009). How to Find your Way to Foreign Languages. Flinta. ISBN 978-5976508279
- ↑ Dilts, Robert (1998). Modeling with NLP. Meta Publications. Capitola, CA. ISBN 978-0916990466
- 1 2 Atkinson, Marilyn; and Paul Gossen (2015). Velocity Instant Fluency. Velocity Learning. ISBN 978-0978375515
- 1 2 Brown, Stacy (January 26, 1998). "Multilingual Speaker to Give Area Seminar". Daily News (Los Angeles). Archived from the original on October 5, 2015.