Idilinaa
VIP
@Idilinaa
There is a difference between a heritage language and a native/first language. Almost no Somalis born and raised in the West are solid native speakers of Af-Somali, they are second language speakers of the language. Linguists use the term heritage speaker for such people. The term mother tongue and native language are a bit misleading, giving it an ethnic baggage. In linguistics they use terms like L1, L2 etc.
First/Native language speaker is the language the baby/children learns and hears from in their parents the first few years before learning and hearing english. That is always/usually Somali. So yeah thats what they mean when they say ''mother tounge'' , ''first language'' ''native language''etc.
It doesn't imply them to be solid native speakers from the get go.