English Language: Who is a native speaker? ( Archived) (13)

I come from a former British colony, where the official language is English and English is the language of instruction in all our schools. We however have our local, mother tongues and there a number of them depending on the part/region of the country you hail from.

I have almost 20 years of formal education and the language of instruction was the English language, including 3 years of postgraduate education in the United Kingdom and about 3 years working experience also in the UK. I therefore consider myself a native English language speaker.

I reckon that some folks on here will beg to differ. So who exactly is a native speaker of the English language? What criteria that defines who is and who isn't a native speaker?

Cheers

Whatever language you spoke at home, or were spoken to as a child and learned is considered your native language, or mother tongue.

I know someone from the Mid East that when they open their mouth and talk, they speak perfect English like one of the Harry Potter Characters. Same person has never been to the UK, and spent very little time in English speaking countries. Amazing really.

The official definition is that native language is the main or first language of the country in which they were born and raised, however, with the movement of people, often the language spoken in a home is not the same as the countries native language. So now a closer definition is; the first language a child is brought up to use within his/her home environment.

Okay, there are exceptions lol, my good friend in Pisa is somewhat the same, she is both native Italian and native Australian, as is her daughter, totally bilingual, makes me so jealous.

iceland