What makes a native native?

mike   Sat Nov 25, 2006 11:34 am GMT
The family or the school? What part of your life you shouldn’t miss so as to be called a native in a language?
Robin   Sat Nov 25, 2006 2:35 pm GMT
Surely a 'native speaker' is someone who has learnt the language as their first language from their mother.

It is their 'Mother tongue'.

Funnily enough, to call someone a 'native' used to be an insult. In the days of the British Empire, the natives were regarded as being very inferior.

I think you could add, that as well as learning the language from your family, to be a native, you should also grow up in the culture.

Among 'native english speakers' there is a huge culteral diversity. So, you could define 'native' as coming from a particular Region of the UK, and having a 'Regional Accent'.
mike   Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:14 pm GMT
>>Surely a 'native speaker' is someone who has learnt the language as their first language from their mother.

It is their 'Mother tongue'. <<

I may disagree with you on that. Take for example a child living with his parents in a country as a non-natives, and the parents don’t speak the language of that country fluently. The kid in his early years will talk to his parents in thier own language, but once he starts to leave the boundary of his family, for example to go to school, he will gradually start losing the ability to talk fluently to his parents in the language he used to talk in earlier, and he will become native in the language of that country where he lives, contrary to his “mother’s tongue”. In such a situation (which happens often) the kid became native not from his parents.
User   Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:19 pm GMT
>> he will gradually start losing the ability to talk fluently to his parents in the language he used to talk in earlier <<

Will he necessarily? I've known plenty of people who could speak both the language that they learned from their parents, and also the language that they learned away from home. It would seem silly not to classify them as native speakers of both languages. Although you're right, if they don't keep up the language they were learning from their parents, it will fade eventually. But some people can speak both languages flawlessly and fluently. I've even known someone who learned 3 languages from his parents--they would switch back and forth between the languages depending on which relatives were visiting, and could also speak English fluently.
mike   Sun Nov 26, 2006 11:58 am GMT
>>Although you're right, if they don't keep up the language they were learning from their parents, it will fade eventually<<

So school is more important than the family to make you become native in a language.
Robin   Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:50 pm GMT
Hi,

I think this is becoming a bit of an academic debate, in which everyone is right.

First of all, in the Topic Heading, there is a punctuation error.

What makes a native native?

The word native is repeated twice, in the manner of some 'eighties' pop groups: 'Wet Wet Wet'.

In Poland, they will often distinguish between Polish Teachers of English, and 'Native Speakers' who teach English. So, when I came across this Topic Heading, I assumed that it was referring to; 'Native Speakers of English'. If you have a 'Native Speaker' of Engish, the next question is: 'Is it a type of English that you want to learn?'

That is obviously a very loaded question.

Moving on, if you then consider, who is a native, native speaker. I would say someone who has been totally immersed in the culture that you are studying. I would not consider, someone who has lived abroad all their life, and is fluent in a number of different languages, a native, native speaker.

Whereas someone who is barely literate, and whose dialect of English is barely intelligible, I would consider to be a native, native speaker. This comes back to one of my original comments about the word 'native', having a negative connotation, as in someone who is rather stupid and ignorant.

There is a Thomas Hardy novel called 'The Return of the Native'. I don't know much about the novel, but I think of the title, as being a play on words. Someone who is a 'man of the world' cannot also be a 'native'.

The other thing that I would add, is that 'native speakers' make characteristic mistakes. In trying to access this site, I have quite often typed in 'anitmoon.com'. 'Antimoon' is actually something that is quite meaningless or bizarre in English. When I type in Anitmoon, Google used to take me to an article in Wikipedia. Being the spoil-sport I am, I have just corrected the spelling mistake in the Wikipedia article. But I would say, that type of spelling mistake, is typical of the sort 'typo' that a native speaker is inclined to make.
Guest   Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:36 pm GMT
All people make typos, not just native speakers.
User   Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:36 pm GMT
>> The other thing that I would add, is that 'native speakers' make characteristic mistakes. In trying to access this site, I have quite often typed in 'anitmoon.com'. 'Antimoon' is actually something that is quite meaningless or bizarre in English. When I type in Anitmoon, Google used to take me to an article in Wikipedia. Being the spoil-sport I am, I have just corrected the spelling mistake in the Wikipedia article. But I would say, that type of spelling mistake, is typical of the sort 'typo' that a native speaker is inclined to make. <<

Doesn't that just have to do with which button you press: the "i" is produced with the right hand, and the "t" is produced with the left. If your right hand is faster than your left while typing, it's possible to make such a mistake. Especially since one normally types web addresses that one frequently visits rather quickly.