A 1st Language can be forgotten. Many young foreigners might move to another country such as America at an early age. By the time they reach adulthood they wont be able to remember their 1st language if they never spoke it. A study was conducted on Koreans who moved to France at an early age. They were asked to perform 3 tasks. These 3 tasks involved a language identification, task, a word recognition task, and a fragment detection task. The results determined that the Koreans couldn't remember their native language. It as also discovered the being exposed to your old language after a long period of time can cause you to eventually remember it.
I found it interesting that being exposed to your old language for a certain amount of time can help you remember it. I feel that If I were to forget English at an early age and not remember it now there would no way I could even remember it even if I tried. Of course when you think about it can't be that difficult. If you can learn a 2nd or 3rd language and speak them well, than why can't you learn your native language again?
I would agree to what is being said. I know that there are Hispanic Parents who talk to their kids at home in Spanish. They don't want their children to forget Spanish as many of these children know English far to well. Some of these children will even translate for their parents as some parents haven't learned English.
I would be curious to know more. I'd like to see if there were any more studies conducted. I'd also wonder if there is anyone out there who could actually remember their native language in a heartbeat after being exposed to it for so many years.
This is a problem for the world. As I said earlier a language dies when you start to forget it. English has been said to be the official business language of the world. Languages are already dying in the business world if that's the case. As foreigners keep moving to America who's to say that 5 languages could be disappearing in the next 10 years? This results in them eventually being dead. Could being bilingual become a thing of the past?
