Why a Mother Tongue does not, or should not matter …

… and why the very idea of relying on a mother tongue in the first place has always bothered me. 

On the surface, the issue might seem quite straight-forward indeed, after all, who is your mother? In what language did she speak to you as a child? Voilà! You have your mother tongue! If only things were that simple!

And to complicate matters even more, Statistics Canada has convoluted things even further with a definition that is loaded with a plethora of conditions and options and parameters, oh my! There are enough categories, alternatives and nuances here to last you until next week:

“Mother tongue refers to the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the person at the time the data was collected. If the person no longer understands the first language learned, the mother tongue is the second language learned. For a person who learned two languages at the same time in early childhood, the mother tongue is the language this person spoke most often at home before starting school. The person has two mother tongues only if the two languages were used equally often and are still understood by the person. For a child who has not yet learned to speak, the mother tongue is the language spoken most often to this child at home. The child has two mother tongues only if both languages are spoken equally often so that the child learns both languages at the same time. (Statistics Canada’s definition of a mother tongue)

When we get right down to it, is there really a need for all these different factors or requirements? What if the basic premise that chronicity equals fluency is not valid? What if your mother tongue is the first language you were exposed to and (while still fluent in it) is not in actual fact the one that you are most comfortable using? How can it be reconciled? Just a quick glimpse of the current language policies in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada is enough to tempt one to simply throw in the towel. And as for this never-ending debate - decades if not centuries long - how can any simple answer possibly exist? 

Where do I fit into all of this? Well like many others, I don’t! And here’s why:

1-   The language policies in Quebec, not to mention the politics, have been skewing linguistic barriers since before I was born.

2-   As a result of this, my meandering path has guaranteed that while I can fit in everywhere, I do not truly belong anywhere.

 As a child of Greek immigrants, my chronological mother tongue is naturally Greek, but is this my actual mother tongue? Not quite. Though still fluent in Greek (with a number of certificates and diplomas to support this), I did in fact study my Greek – as all learned people do: the Greek language, Greek grammar, Greek history, Greek culture, Greek dances (yes it’s all starting to sound an awful lot like My Big Fat Greek Wedding), but despite all that, I have long since chosen to fully embrace my identity as Canadian; consequently opting to remain oblivious to current Greek pop culture and associated satirical political commentary. So while my family does hail from the land of Zeus and Athena, and regardless of the fact that this was indeed my first linguistic environment; it most certainly does not figure at the top of my list, linguistically speaking.

As for schooling, well this is where the Quebec language divide comes into play. Setting aside the recent developments of Bill 96, I am a certainly a child of Bill 101. For those who are not aware of the politics from decades past, this particular Bill essentially ensured that I would be educated in French, like it or not! So off to a French elementary school I went, followed thereafter by a French high school. And while this still remains a charged issue for some, I personally feel quite fortunate to have had the opportunity to be educated wholly and completely in French; not French immersion mind you, which was quite popular with some, but rather French as a mother tongue, French as the primary language during my most formative years, with grammar lessons and literature, learning exceptions, studying nuances and inferences, not to mention an everlasting love of Molière. But the saga naturally does not end there; oh no, nothing quite so simple as that!

Off to an English CEGEP I went, and then pursued French Studies at an English university.

– And to complicate matters even further, I decided to add German into the mix because, well, why not? But since that last was learned in adulthood, I digress as it has no bearing on this whole ‘mother tongue’ business. 

So, armed with my diplomas and certificates, I set off for the world of translation; and translate I did, everything I could lay my hands on; from French into English of course. Though over the years, I sometimes found myself translating from English into French as well, and sometimes even from Greek into French or English, respectively. I say ‘of course,’ but how did I pick a direction? What made me choose one over the other? Where does Greek fit in? 

Having trained in the early 00s and worked as a professional translator since 2003, I often pause and respond with humour whenever anyone asks me to pinpoint my mother tongue. While I can certainly see the merits behind the notion of translators working in their ‘native’ tongues, the lines are not always necessarily quite as clear cut as all that!

So, even though the question might seem rather simple at first, from a professional perspective, I find the idea of listing Greek as my mother tongue to be quite absurd. Regardless of the language I spoke as a toddler, or even the language of my primary or even secondary education, as a certified linguistic professional, where language proficiency and excellence matter significantly more than temporal acquisition, I would be hard-pressed indeed to declare any language as my mother tongue if it needs to fit all the above criteria. And under no circumstances can I claim English as my mother tongue, not by any means. And yet! The journey has been such that, while I remain fluent in both French and Greek, English has taken primus locus in my personal order of linguistic prevalence. 

Therefore, the antiquated notion of a mother tongue, as the language learned in childhood and still understood today is so outdated as to be inconsequential when we focus on the world on translation. What we should be asking instead should reflect specialized languages, or to put it differently, language proficiency and excellence, rather than what one spoke at the ages of 2, 4 or even 20.

While all this is indeed quite personal, as a second-generation Canadian I believe there are many of us out there whose chronological mother tongue is not in fact the one that our life’s journey has placed at the forefront. 

And so, while I can easily answer ‘multilingual’ or ‘polyglot’ whenever someone asks me about my mother tongue, in reality I should say linguistically non-singular, or even non-binary. Perhaps it’s now time to apply notions of inclusion and diversity to languages and linguistics, instead of trying to shove someone in one box versus another.

At the end of the day, translators have as diverse a professional profile as does any other occupation, and the myriad of ways one can travel down one’s own path to language acquisition, which in turn provides flexibility in the choice of translating from any one language into another, cannot be answered by so simple a question as “what is your mother tongue?” – whether one chooses to work in it or not. So, instead of this simplistic question with underlying implications regarding one’s mother tongue, we need to understand that when it comes to translators, we are talking about a world of professionals who do not exist in a vacuum, but rather a community that encompasses a large number of wordsmiths from different backgrounds who are eager to provide quality translations and help people understand one another. And isn't that the most important thing after all?

What do I say whenever I am asked about my own mother tongue? Why all of them, of course!

I’m indeed quite curious to hear your views on this topic. Do you have one single mother tongue, or does this notion have you scrambling for an answer?

I’d love to hear from you!