To begin with, we must clarify: official data and numbers are different. According to the Institute of the German Economy, there are 7,186 mother tongues worldwide worldwide. UNESCO estimates that it is just more than 6,000.

However, they agree at one point: the diversity of maternal languages ​​is threatened. Researchers report that every two weeks disappears a mother tongue.

What is mother tongue?

The Duden Dictionary defines the mother tongue as a “language that one learns from their parents as a child” – that is, before any school education. Usually, these mothers who teach a child his first words to a child, so in most cultures there is talk of “mother’s language”. However, this is not the case everywhere: in Ukrainian or Russian, for example, the term “Ridna Mova” or “Rodnoj Jazyk” is used – that is, the “innate” language or the language of relatives and family.

In German, the word “Muttersprache” first appeared in the early 16th century. It was a translation of the Latin term “Materna Lingua” and was initially used to describe the conference, unlike Latin, which was the language of science. Latin, “Lingua Patria”, were mainly intended for men in the Middle Ages, while women, who usually did not receive training, simply maintained their mother tongue, as the philologist Claus Alzwig explains in his work.

Homeland – where one learns the mother tongue?

Something similar happens with the term “home”, which is based on the German word “Vaterland”. However, the attempt of German poets and philosophers, especially Johann Gotfried Hearder, to introduce the term “mutterland” as a counterpart “Muttersprache” did not prosper. Today, the word is used only in cases such as reference to England as a “mother of football”.

On the contrary, there is a close relationship between the concept of homeland and mother tongue. In many languages, such as in Slavic and in some African, the “homeland” is feminine and does not mean “country of fathers” but more … “Mothers’ country or” country of the people “.

Even today, in the midst of a world of immigration, mother tongue often remains a key element of identity and sense of belonging.

The wealth of multilingualism

Multilingualism is considered by the researchers, including linguist Aria Adli, as a basis to enrich and evolve culture.

“Language is in constant evolution, in a continuous flow. This is absolutely natural, “Adle said in an interview with DW. “The English, because of the internet, cinema and music, has gained particular attention in recent years. In the past and for a long period of time, French were prominent in the German -speaking space. Such trends are also reflected in the way we speak. It’s absolutely normal, ”he concludes.

Curated by: Chryssa Vachcevanou