To think you can have two first languages?

[dirtysusan]

My friend asked me what my first language was. I grew up speaking English and Gaelic. I grew up in a moderately Gaelic community (about 30-40%). My dad spoke Gaelic and my mum English (she is an Englisher by birth). I went to a Gaelic school.

I would say I have two first languages. My English is now better than my Gaelic because I rarely get chance to speak it in London. But give me an hour and I’m back to normal.

Yes of course you can. There's usually a language that is at least slightly dominant, though. Language dominance can shift over time and often varies by topic or situation as well. I don't think you can be totally 100% balanced but you can certainly have more than one first language.

First language also doesn't have to be your most dominant language - it's even possible to completely lose a first language in certain circumstances.

my children speak English and Polish (I'm from Poland)

My daughter speaks English and French fluently. We speak English at home but she started in a creche aged 2 and was entirely educated in French. Her vocabulary is stronger in each language depending on the topic. She watched a lot of UK tv growing up but read books in both languages. Now she's away at Uni and speaking French all the time, she's told me she keeps forgetting words for things in English. I must ask her what language she dreams in.

I think it's possible, but really hard in practice. My children were totally bilingual, but with school, life and TV in English is has naturally become the first language. I think you'd need to be using both languages really regularly, she's even then the danger is language would become correct dependant.

Yes, but it's very hard to understand if you're not bilingual. I'm not and it's hard for me to imagine, but I also accept that just because it's hard for me to understand doesn't mean it's not someone else's experience.

What language do you swear in?

Being monolingual is actually unusual from a global perspective. I'm surprised about the dreaming comments (pps wondering about dreaming I mean) - even when I spoke A-Level French and Spanish, they infiltrated my dreams which I'd have thought would be a fairly common experience. As for what language you think in, we have lots of words that mean the same (close and shut for example) and we don't translate one to mean the other. It's just that on a larger scale. I don't translate a phrase like Je m'appelle into English. It is familiar enough that it holds meaning in its own right. Also like when you're familiar enough with the 24 hour clock you don't translate it back to the 12 hour clock, it just means what it means.

'S e Gàidhlig a' chiad chanain aig mo nighean (aig an taigh agus aig Sgoil Araich), ach bruidhnidh i sa Bheurla gu h-àbhaisteach. Bidh e inntinneach dè chanas i anns na bliadhnaichean ri teachd.

(My dd's first language is technically Gaelic, it's what I speak at home and she's in Gaelic education) but she mostly speaks in English. Will be interesting to see what she considers to be her first language in the future.)

I'm also a Welsh speaker. Welsh is my mother tongue, but I actually make a living out of being an English native speaker.

I’m the daughter of immigrants and I initially only spoke my parent’s language - they could also speak English. But spoke their homeland language at home. To the extent that I only learnt English when I went to school. I was definitely bilingual and still am but now I’m much stronger in English.

Yes, although you can be bilingual with only one first language and being completely fluent in another. I wouldn't say it has to always mean native level in both languages.

I'm learning a second language and I've heard that you know you are getting good at a new language when you start dreaming in that language. I haven't started dreaming in it yet but I do think in both languages (or at least try to think in the second language as well). I've spoken to other people who have English as a first language and learned a second language who have said they started dreaming in the new language when they got good enough.

My sons' first language will be English, but the hope is that they will be fluent in both languages despite starting with only English, so I suppose they will only have 1 first language technically but should be equally proficient in 2?

I lived in a European country for a few years and developed a good level of fluency in that language. I dreamed in that language as well as in English. So although the question of what language someone dreams in is v interesting, it does not demarcate (?) whether or not it's a mother tongue

@Gwenhwyfar that's a current debate we are having at our (bilingual) school.

For me, to be bilingual means that you are fluent in both languages.
To speak a language (at most levels, below C1 IMO), is not the same as being fluent.

W

I learned 2 languages at schools never dreamt in them. It took few months after relocating for dreams in new dominant language to start. They now revert back few days in my visit to my native country.

Yes, as pps said you can absolutely be bilingual or multilingual from birth and consider both/more you mother tongue.

My children have two first languages, both pretty equally strong now (it helps that the non-dominant language is English so its reinforced so much besides from me). My DD is educated in Finnish but she prefers to read in English (to the detriment of her school related reading...) but she is not good at translating, some concepts are firmly one language or the other, but my DS seems to be more adept (so far, he's only 5 so early to tell) at translating and keeping information in both languages.

For bureaucratic purposes though they're only allowed one first language, which I put down as English when they were born so means they automatically get put into Finnish as a second language for education which has its issues. They really need to make it so we can put down more than one mother tongue.

I dream in Finnish sometimes, and think in Finnish when I'm speaking it, but I am nowhere near fluent so I don't think dreaming and thinking have all that much to do with whether or not a language is your first language.

DD learnt BSL from birth but as she can speak people tend to assume English is her first language. She is fully bilingual in both.