My native tongue (or mother tongue; for me it's the same and I assume it's the same to keep it less complicated and not being too anal about linguistics) is something that most people never know exists and when I tell them they say "oh, but that's just Hindi" which is ironic because my native tongue predates Hindi, in any shape of form, by at least 1000 years. Another sad irony is, the Southern part of my country, blames me for trying to destroy their mother tongues with Hindi while completely unaware that it's Hindi that is destroying (actually destroyed) my mother tongue and Hindi itself is being destroyed by English.
When I had visited Korea it was really heartening in one aspect (as much difficult as it was to converse there) - it was witnessing how they have retained their language and are proud of it (or maybe not; it maybe just natural and how it is as a matter of fact) and actually use it in every way possible.
Can I loose my mother tongue? I don't think so. When I go back home (my village) the switch happens within a matter of hours or maybe a day or two (max) - vocabulary, accent, grammar, lilt - everything comes back. Very strange, at least to me. Can I lose my first language? I already lost it. Hindi was my first language and now it's English and I kind of feel sad about it that it happened in my own country where English is not a native (or mother) tongue of anyone at all.
When I had visited Korea it was really heartening in one aspect (as much difficult as it was to converse there) - it was witnessing how they have retained their language and are proud of it (or maybe not; it maybe just natural and how it is as a matter of fact) and actually use it in every way possible.
Can I loose my mother tongue? I don't think so. When I go back home (my village) the switch happens within a matter of hours or maybe a day or two (max) - vocabulary, accent, grammar, lilt - everything comes back. Very strange, at least to me. Can I lose my first language? I already lost it. Hindi was my first language and now it's English and I kind of feel sad about it that it happened in my own country where English is not a native (or mother) tongue of anyone at all.