Mother tongue in Serbia: A speakers’ perspective on the meaning of the concept
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Mirjana Mirić
Abstract
The present study analyzes the meanings bilingual and multilingual speakers attach to the term mother tongue, a familiar concept which is most often intuitively understood, but difficult to define. Taking as the main frame of reference the vulnerable linguistic communities of Serbia, the authors assess the answers given by the interviewees to the open question “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?” asked in the pilot sociolinguistic questionnaire the study is based on. The responses are classified in several categories, which are then analyzed and discussed. The findings show that the speakers give equal importance to the period of language acquisition, in early childhood, and the role of the family in language transmission for defining mother tongue. The diversity of responses obtained in the study suggests that the definitions provided by the censuses, used in the education context, human rights literature, or sociolinguistics, do not necessarily overlap with the social reality, as the actual members of the linguistic communities perceive the concept as being more heterogeneous than generally assumed and do not automatically connect it to mothers.
1 Introduction
The term mother tongue is a familiar concept, widely used by speakers and scholars around the world and prevalent today in the education context and in human rights literature. Nevertheless, mother tongue is understood and defined differently by different people and in different fields of study, and its meaning during the years has also changed considerably. Mother tongue has in time also come to occupy a central place in the education curricula and censuses. Yet, the meaning the speakers attach to the term does not necessarily overlap with what is meant by researchers, educators or policy makers.
Our aim is to shed light on the intricacies connected to the use of the term mother tongue by the speakers themselves. In this task, we take the contemporary vulnerable linguistic communities of Serbia, bilingual by default, as a main frame of reference, as it is especially in bilingual or multilingual contexts where a minority, vulnerable language is spoken, that the concept of mother tongue and the meaning the speakers attach to it gain specific importance.
During the last decades, the term mother tongue has been deemed insufficiently precise and unsuitable as a technical term, highly misleading and metaphorical, given that it suggests that mothers, as primary caretakers of children, are the only ones responsible for intergenerational language transmission (Romaine 1995, Gupta 1997, Yildiz 2012, Bugarski 2017). Therefore, alternative terms referring to non-mainstream languages in bilingual repertoires have been used, preferable but still questionable alternatives, each encoding different perspectives and unveiling conceptual implications underpinning their use: minority language, first language, family language, heritage language or home language (Eisenchlas and Schalley 2020). Even though mother tongue is today mainly used by authors who wish to problematize emotional attachment to certain languages (Viets 2023), or advocate for a more fluid reconceptualization of the term, that better captures the lived experiences and complex identities of those to whom it applies (Seals 2020), we use the concept in the present article not to stress a certain perspective and attitudinal implication. Rather, we employ it because (1) it is the most appropriate translation for the Serbian maternji jezik which has been used in the questionnaire that we discuss further, (2) it is the only term used in the Serbian population censuses and school curricula to refer to what has been otherwise termed first, home or heritage language, to which we make reference throughout the text, and (3) it is (still) the preferred term in the Serbian public space, and therefore, the only one which our respondents have encountered or are familiar with (see also Bugarski 2017, 746).
It has been acknowledged that speakers’ attitudes to official languages and dialects are closely linked to their perceived social status, vitality and the resulting usefulness to their users, while personal and national loyalty to one’s mother tongue is well attested (Giles and Johnson 1981). However, research into what exactly the speakers themselves understand as mother tongue is conspicuously scarce. The different interpretations of the term are often in conflict, and conventional wisdom and clarifications provided by the experts only prove that there is not much consensus or a clear understanding between disciplines, cultures, or individuals.
In what follows we start with analytically distinguishing between the meanings of mother tongue in sociolinguistics and demographic statistics, two domains included in the design of the research project on vulnerable languages and linguistic varieties in Serbia, whose pilot results our analysis is based on. Then we present the material, instruments and methodology used in the project, as well as the linguistic communities encompassed by it. The analysis in this study focuses on the answers to the open question “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?” of the pilot VLingS Questionnaire 0.0, and on the categories that we identified by means of a set of keywords. The wide variety of answers, as well as the considerable number of respondents who could not offer an answer to the question, support the idea that mother tongue is one of the least understood and difficult to define linguistic concepts.
It is important to emphasize that the analysis relies on responses obtained from the pilot version of the questionnaire, which was conducted during the pilot fieldwork phase. This phase was designed to test the questionnaire’s effectiveness in assessing the vulnerability of several minority communities in Serbia (see Section 4 for details). While the question concerning the concept of mother tongue may not hold central importance within the questionnaire or the overarching project, it serves as a pivotal focus for analysis within this article.
2 The meaning of mother tongue in sociolinguistics
Contemporary linguists and educators commonly use the term L1 to refer to a first language, that is provided by a child’s direct attendants at home, in a natural environment, without the participation of educational institutions (Kroon 2005, 36), and the term L2 to refer to a second language or a foreign language that is being studied. L1 is also called the dominant, home or native language – or mother tongue. According to Chomsky (1986), all children have an equal degree of competence in their mother tongue, and they are perfect in using it. The term first language is probably the most commonly used, but also rather ambiguous and prone to divergent interpretations, since there are several dimensions in which a language can be ‘first’ (Eisenchlas and Schalley 2020, 23–4).
The dictionary definitions of mother tongue are very diverse: “one’s native language,” a “language from which others spring” or “the language into which one is born.” Since Medieval Latin had the term lingua materna, in European societies at least, it was the mother who was assumed to pass on her language to her offspring (Tulasiewicz and Adams 1998, 4). The exact equivalent of the term mother tongue is found in many European languages (e.g., Ger. Muttersprache, Fr. langue maternelle, It. madrelingua, Rom. limbă maternă, Ser. maternji jezik), although in some Slavic languages the terms father tongue or native language are used instead (e.g., Pl. język ojczysty, Rus. poднoй язык). However, in opposition to the mother tongue hypothesis, recent genetic linguistic research has suggested that the teaching by a mother of her spouse’s tongue to her children is a mechanism by which language has preferentially been spread over time; this is called the father tongue hypothesis (van Driem 2010). Nevertheless, the literal reading of the term mother tongue, which suggests that mothers are “passive repositories of languages, which they pass on to their children” (Romaine 1995, 18) and that “just as you can only have one natural mother, who furthermore cannot be exchanged for another, you can only have one mother tongue, which cannot be replaced by some other” (Bugarski 2017, 745), makes the use of the term by scholars today questionable.
Leaving aside the implied focus on the mothers, mother tongue has been defined by bundling together several dimensions of language acquisition, as the language “one learns first, identifies with, and/or is identified by others as a native speaker of; sometimes also the language that one is most competent in or uses the most” (Skutnabb-Kangas and McCarty 2008, 11). Nevertheless, some linguists prefer the term home language, which usually denotes “small, uncodified, spoken varieties of dialects used in domestic speech situations which are frequently unacknowledged as distinctive dialects” (Tulasiewicz and Adams 1998, 7). Consequently, three uses of mother tongue are identified: a ‘private’ language used among intimate groups of speakers, a vernacular used as a ‘regional’ language, and a language which achieves national and official status (idem, 7).
Historically speaking, mother tongue was in the beginning closely connected to a majority context and to emancipatory movements. The concept started spreading in Europe from the twelfth century onward (Tulasiewicz and Adams 1998), while in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mother tongue played an important role in nation building. This is the period when many mother tongues were unified and standardized, thus turning into ‘official’ or ‘national’ languages, and contributing to legitimizing the nations (Heller 1999, Clark 2001). Nevertheless, today the term mother tongue tends to be used more for language minorities than for language majorities and becomes most relevant in multilingual contexts. Minority language is just another one of the plethora of terms used as a partial synonym for mother tongue, to denote a non-mainstream language in bilingual and multilingual repertoires (Eisenchlas and Schalley 2020, 22–3). Yet, as the term mother tongue has taken an evaluative meaning, one should be aware of its possible negative connotations and political loading (Kroon 2005, 37). Today, the numerous terms referring to the mother tongue from a minority perspective (e.g., home language, native language, own language, vernacular language, ethnic minority/group language, community language, heritage language) are in many cases just euphemisms “intended to recognize that they are not the majority language” (Kaplan and Baldauf 1997, 21).
In a multilingual situation, the mother tongue might not be the first language of communication any longer, but the preferred language of the speaker, or the language that they feel emotionally connected to, which presumes a choice made from two or more systems. Finally, in order for the definition of mother tongue to be complete, it needs to include the fact that some users, the bilinguals and multilinguals, may employ more than one language on occasion, given that linguistic pluralism exists in almost all countries (Tulasiewicz and Adams 1998, 13).
Mother tongue has come to be seen as a distinguishing marker of ethnic and national identity. Fishman (1977) sees language as the “quintessential symbol of ethnicity,” thus considering it much more than a mere instrument of communication. However, Ross (1979) challenges this somewhat static view of language as a characteristic of ethnic identity, distinguishing between language as something derived from ethnicity and language as something which has to be negotiated or fought for by minority groups. Recently, Seals (2020, 190), discussing situations in which participants actively work to “change their mother tongue,” shows that not all people feel that language is a fixed part of themselves; therefore, “it is more appropriate to think of embodied language as something that can be negotiated and renegotiated, such as how we think of identity.”
Although language, regardless of whether one adopts a static or a more dynamic perspective on it, stays a basic element of ethnic identification, and also (census) categorization, defining mother tongue in scholarship is still not at all straightforward. As social reality is much more complex than the simple overlapping one’s mother tongue with one’s ethnicity, and the declared identity of individuals often conflicts with the declared mother tongue, studying the mother tongue becomes a real challenge. The complexity of the issue, from a sociological perspective, is reflected on several levels. Thus, we encounter processes that occur as a result of acculturation and/or assimilation, of mixed marriages and the dilemma of which language to choose as a mother tongue (in cases of bilingualism and diglossia), of demographic characteristics of the ethnic community, but also of the methodological (in)ability to encompass the social reality in all its complexity (Sokolovska 2008).
3 The difficulty of defining mother tongue in demographic statistics
In multicultural and multilingual societies (and there are few that are not), on the one side is the mother tongue of the majority population, and on the other side are those of minority communities. The mother tongue of the majority population, by its very nature, tends to impose itself as the main language; in other words, we are talking about assimilation processes of different intensities, which take place in different directions, but always with the same goal: to provide linguistic vitality to the majority language. On the other hand, the use of minority languages depends on numerous factors. First, there is the strength of the ethnic identity of a particular minority, which is directly related to the size of the minority community, the proximity to the mother/home country, if it exists, and the existence of cultural, economic, and other ties with its diaspora. Then, the cultural and religious features of the minority community, the historical context, and the time and manner of their migratory movements are other important factors. Each ethnic group is unique in regard to experiencing a language as a mother tongue, and generalization is problematic. We can say, with a dose of caution, that if the minority community is less numerous, has the same religion, similar culture and history with the majority group, if they have lived on the present territory for a longer period of time, then they are more likely to accept the majority language as their mother tongue (Sokolovska 2010).
Due to this complexity and numerous factors that affect minority languages, their research becomes the subject of scientific discussions in many disciplines, but also outside scientific circles. On the one hand, we find information about minority languages in census books, and on the other hand, in sociological and linguistic research. Both sources provide important information to researchers dealing with this issue. While the most significant feature of census data is comprehensiveness, scientific research based on samples (be it quantitative or qualitative) explains minority languages on many levels and provides a more complete picture.
The importance of census data is highlighted in many scientific works that discuss the improvement of census methodology, as well as its role in the study of multilingualism and multiculturalism (Blagoni and Poropat Jeletić 2018a). Oštarić (2018), in an analysis of the linguistic and ethnolinguistic aspects included in the population censuses of 166 countries, notices that several states are harmonizing their methodologies and that they have similar practices due to the similarity of patterns and questions. However, in many censuses, defining the mother tongue is still a key problem (Oštarić 2018, 58–9). The author emphasizes the need for a better and more precise definition of mother tongue, as well as changing the number and types of questions about the mother tongue to obtain more reliable and precise data.
It has been pointed out that the basic problems language demography is facing are the boundaries of language communities and the boundaries of languages. In an attempt to address these problems, the authors explain that language demography encounters “three natural obstacles: the speaker, the mother tongue and the multilingual speaker” (Blagoni and Poropat Jeletić 2018b, 166), of which the problem of defining the mother tongue speaker is particularly difficult. Studying multilingualism on the example of Istria, the authors state that there has not been any extensive demographic–linguistic research in Istria so far, and that information provided by population censuses and periodic counting of certain characteristics of the entire population is of great importance.
It must be noted that the concept of mother tongue has been subject to surprising interpretations in successive censuses in Europe, as well as in the rest of the world. In India, for example, the perspective on the mother tongue has changed significantly since 1881, when it was first introduced in the population census: “the language spoken by the child from the cradle” (1881), “the language spoken by the parents” (1891), “the language of general use” (1901), “the language spoken by the mother,” “If the mother is dead, then write the name of the language generally used in the household” (1961) (Pattanayak 2003, 24).
As far as the census data in Serbia are concerned, it has similar drawbacks: the inadequate or limitative definitions of the mother tongue in the methodological explanations of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the lack of variants of answering the question about mother tongue, the impossibility of applying longitudinal research in this area due to changes in the definitions of mother tongue, as well as changes in the question regarding ethnicity. National belonging and mother tongue, except for the 1948 census, have been the two questions asked at all population censuses in Serbia after World War II. However, the definition of mother tongue applied at the population censuses in Serbia has changed during the years: “the language that a person predominantly speaks in the household” (1953) to “the language that a person learned to speak in childhood, i.e. the language that a person considers to be their mother tongue if several languages are spoken in the household” (1961–2002) (Raduški 2006, 196). The definition of mother tongue in the 2011 and 2022 censuses remained the same as in the previous, 2002 census, meaning that in the last 70 years the definition of mother tongue in the Yugoslav and later Serbian population censuses has not been subject to reconsideration.
The last two Serbian censuses, from 2011 and 2022, introduced a novelty as far as ethnicity is concerned, singling out double or multiple ethnicities in the category ‘Other’ (Census 2023, 9). This change makes it impossible to get information about the declared mother tongue of the population with a declared double ethnicity (mostly children from mixed marriages). The answers to this and many other questions about mother tongue remain the subject of sample-based research, like the one we base our study on.
4 Material, instruments and methodology
According to the most recent, 2022 population census, Serbia has a total population of 6,647,003. Serbia is one of the European countries with the highest number of registered national minorities, while the province of Vojvodina is recognizable for its multiethnic and multicultural tradition. Serbs are the largest ethnic group in Serbia, representing 80.6% of the total population, while Hungarians make the largest ethnic minority in Serbia, concentrated predominantly in northern Vojvodina and representing 2.7% of the country’s population. Bosniaks make for 2.3% and Roma for 1.98% of the population. Other minority groups include Albanians, Bulgarians, Bunjevci, Croats, Macedonians, Romanians, Rusyns, Slovak, Vlachs, etc. In spite of the many minority groups in Serbia, a drastic drop in the number of their members was registered at the 2022 census in comparison to only a decade ago, following the decrease in the overall population in Serbia of nearly half a million people.
The official language of Serbia is Serbian, which is the only European language with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. Apart from Serbian, there are 15 minority languages spoken in Serbia: Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Bunjevac, Croatian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Macedonian, Romani, Romanian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Vlach,[1] and Vojvodina Rusyn. These languages, at least declaratively, are in official use in municipalities or cities where the ethnic minority speaking them exceeds 15% of the total population. In Vojvodina, the provincial administration uses, besides Serbian, five other languages: Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Rusyn, and Slovak. It is important to say that not always does the declared ethnicity correlate with the declared mother tongue, and different levels of disparity might be present.
As the analysis of Serbia’s population dynamics according to these two factors shows, the censuses carried out between 1953 and 2011 revealed three models of correlation: (1) ethnicity overlaps with mother tongue, which implies the maintenance of linguistic identity, regardless of the intensity, direction and causes of demographic processes, (2) a moderate correlation characterized by a smaller number of speakers of the corresponding languages compared to the number of nationally declared ones, in similar proportions in almost all censuses, and (3) floating, statistically variable ethnic groups – the biggest deviations were recorded among Vlachs and Roma (Knežević 2019, 463).
Several minority languages spoken in Serbia are considered endangered. The UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (Moseley 2010) lists six endangered languages in Serbia: Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Romani, Vojvodina Rusyn, Judezmo, and Torlak, while the Catalogue of Endangered Languages[2] (Lee and van Way 2016) mentions seven: Aromanian, Balkan Romani, Baltic Romani, Carpathian Romani, Ladino, Sinte Romani, and Vlax Romani (for a critical review of the data offered by these international databases, see Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020, 73).
We base our research on the data offered by the first results of the project ‘Vulnerable Languages and Linguistic Varieties in Serbia’ (VLingS), whose pilot research took place in 2022.[3] Starting from the data offered by Serbian population censuses, the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger and the Catalogue of Endangered Languages, but also by unofficial estimates regarding the number of speakers of different varieties, and the direct experience and expertise of the project members, the project is aimed at providing a more accurate assessment of the degree of vulnerability of languages and linguistic varieties in Serbia and encompasses Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Vojvodina Rusyn (Ruthenian), Judezmo (Ladino), Romani (Vlax and Balkan varieties), Megleno-Romanian, Vlach, and Bayash Romanian. The main research instrument during the first phase of the project was the pilot VLingS Questionnaire 0.0.
4.1 Linguistic communities included in the study
In addition to the linguistic varieties classified as endangered to varying degrees by international databases (Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Vojvodina Rusyn, Ladino, Romani), the study also included three other Romance minority varieties (Megleno-Romanian, Vlach, and Bayash Romanian), based on the researchers’ fieldwork experience in Serbia. Of the linguistic varieties covered in the study, only Rusyn and Romani are officially recognized as minority languages in Serbia according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Bulgarian, on the other hand, is recognized, but Banat Bulgarian is not.
The number of members of each community, as well as the number of speakers for each variety, varies across communities and linguistic varieties. Table 1 provides the number of citizens categorized by their ethnicity and mother tongue as reported in the 2022 Census. It is important to note that the census does not capture data on Bayash Roma, Megleno-Romanians, or Sephardic Jews.
The 2022 Census data regarding ethnicity and mother tongue
| Ethnicity | Roma | Vlacha | Rusyn | Bulgarianb | Aromanian | Bayash Roma | Megleno-Romanian | Sephardic Jew |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | 131,936 | 21,013 | 11,483 | 12,918 | 327 | — | — | — |
| Language | Romani | Vlach | Rusyn | Bulgarian | Aromanian | Bayash Romanian | Megleno-Romanian | Ladino |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | 79,687 | 23,216 | 8,725 | 7,939 | — | — | — | — |
aIt is noteworthy that part of the Vlach community declares a Romanian or Serbian ethnicity.
bThe census data do not specifically list Banat Bulgarian as a distinct ethnicity. Therefore, the total number of Bulgarians is provided in the table without a separate count for Banat Bulgarians.
In what follows, we will briefly present the linguistic varieties included in the study.
Aromanian is an Eastern Romance variety spoken in the Balkans, which is considered a separate language by some and a dialect of Romanian by others. It is spoken not only in Serbia but also in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, and Romania. The presence of Aromanians in Serbia can be attributed primarily to migrations that took place during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but also later. The Aromanian community in Serbia is dispersed throughout the country and does not form compact groups anywhere. It is important to note that the majority of Serbian citizens of Aromanian descent do not speak Aromanian and instead adopt a Serbian identity; it is mainly the recent migrants from North Macedonia who still speak Aromanian in Serbia (Kahl 2002, Plasković 2004, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Banat Bulgarian is a South Slavic variety spoken in the Banat region of Serbia, as well as in Romania, by the Banat Bulgarians (Paulicians), descendants of the Catholic refugees who settled here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries after fleeing from northern Bulgaria. According to the 2022 Census, there were 1,123 Bulgarians registered in the Vojvodina region, with 400 reported speakers of Bulgarian. However, unofficial estimates suggest that the number of Banat Bulgarian speakers in Serbia ranges from 1,000 to 4,000 (Ivanova and Bečeva 2003, Vučković 2009, Nomachi 2016, Sikimić and Nomaći 2016, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Vojvodina Rusyn (Ruthenian) is an East Slavic language written in the Cyrillic script. It is closest to Ukrainian and incorporates many elements borrowed from West Slavic languages. While similar varieties are spoken in eastern Slovakia, south-east Poland, and the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine, Vojvodina Rusyn is spoken in the Vojvodina region of Serbia (more precisely in Bačka) and in Croatia. The members of the community settled in Vojvodina starting with the middle of the eighteenth century (Fejsa 2012, Dražović 2018, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Judezmo (Ladino) is the language of Sephardic Jews, a Romance variety which represents a historical descent of (classical) Spanish. It was originally spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, prior to the expulsion of Sephardic Jews in the fifteenth century. Today, Ladino speakers are scattered across many countries around the world, with communication largely taking place through the Internet. The first Sephardic Jewish community in Belgrade was formed in the 1620s, and the language shift to Serbian occurred between the 1860s and 1940s. Today the number of Ladino speakers in Serbia is believed to be less than 10 (Friedman and Joseph 2014, Vučina Simović 2016, Pons 2019, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Romani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken today in Europe, North and South America, and Australia by at least 3–4 million speakers. Linguists classify Romani into four main branches: North, Central, Vlax, and Balkan, each of which further divides into subgroups of dialects and varieties (Matras 2002, Elšík and Beníšek 2020). Historical records trace the presence of ‘Gypsy’ entertainment groups in the territory of present-day Serbia back to the fourteenth century, but more intensive settlement occurred in the nineteenth century, when the Roma in the Romanian principalities were freed from slavery. Today, the Roma population is dispersed across all regions of Serbia, including urban and rural areas. Unlike other minority languages spoken in Serbia, Romani faces significant stigmatization, and negative attitudes toward the language and its speakers have been reported (Gjorgjević 1903, 1906, Vukanović 1983, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Megleno-Romanian is an Eastern Romance variety, viewed by some as a separate Romance language, a dialect of Aromanian, an intermediary between Romanian and Aromanian, or a dialect of Romanian. The presence of Megleno-Romanians in Serbia, namely, in Vojvodina, is the result of colonization made by the Yugoslav Communist Party after World War II, from North Macedonia. Among the colonized Macedonians, a small group of Megleno-Romanian-speaking Vlachs settled in several villages of Vojvodina. Their precise number, as well as the number of returnees to North Macedonia, is not known. Megleno-Romanian was used only within the family and knowledge of the language was mostly kept secret (Atanasov 2002, Sorescu-Marinković and Măran 2016, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Bayash Romanian is a non-standard variety of Romanian spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Bayash, also known as Rudari or Romanian Gypsies, and generally considered Roma by the majority population. After the abolition of slavery in the Romanian Principalities, in the mid-nineteenth century, but even before this date, they left Romania and settled in various regions of the Balkans. In Serbia, Bayash Romanian has developed independently from the standard variety of Romanian and has been heavily influenced by Serbian. The exact number of Bayash Roma and speakers of Bayash Romanian in Serbia is difficult to determine, but it is estimated to be several tens of thousands of people (Sikimić 2005, Sorescu-Marinković 2021, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
Vlach is an Eastern Romance variety spoken in Eastern Serbia, which has recently been codified. Due to the intense and prolonged contact with Serbian, and isolation of its speakers, the Vlach variety displays a relative linguistic distance from standard Romanian, although it has a Romanian dialectal basis. The presence of Vlachs on the territory of Serbia is primarily a result of colonization and spontaneous migrations that took place from north to south of the Danube during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to unofficial estimates, the number of speakers of Vlach in Eastern Serbia is much higher than the figures recorded in census data, possibly reaching up to 200,000 individuals (Sikimić and Sorescu-Marinković 2013, Sikimić 2014, Huțanu and Sorescu-Marinković 2018, Sorescu-Marinković et al. 2020).
4.2 Instrument: The Pilot VLingS Questionnaire 0.0
The pilot version of the questionnaire used for the purpose of this study, VLingS Questionnaire 0.0, aimed at creating and testing a sample of questions which should be relevant for the assessment of language vulnerability in all linguistic communities encompassed by the project. The pilot questionnaire is not an adaptation of any existing sociolinguistic questionnaire, as questions are original and were created by the members of the project, with the exception of the demographic questions in the final section of the questionnaire. The pilot questionnaire consists of 16 sections, which contain questions that elicit diverse information based on the interviewees’ personal experience with the languages and linguistic varieties encompassed by the project (henceforth: target languages/linguistic varieties).
Section I of the pilot questionnaire, General data about linguonyms and language usage (19 questions + 1 subquestion), elicits information about each target language (e.g., linguonym(s) in the variety itself and Serbian), about all linguistic varieties which the speakers use, speakers’ mother tongue and first language, their self-assessed proficiency in production and comprehension of a target variety, frequency of language usage, and language use in the family (with partners, parents, grandparents, and other family members). Section II, Data about language acquisition and intergenerational language transmission (9 questions), collects data about the age and sociolinguistic conditions of language acquisition of a target language and Serbian, language transmission to younger generations in the family (children, grandchildren), and speakers’ estimate of endangerment of a target variety (based on a given scale of answers).
Section III, Domains of language usage (3 questions + 17), is based on the frequency of a target language usage across various formal and informal language domains or with particular persons, and across different topics (e.g., personal topics vs topics of social interest). Section IV, Literacy (11 questions + 5), asks speakers whether they can read and write in a target language and Serbian, and how frequently they employ both languages in reading and writing (e.g., messages, emails, news, literature). Section V, Education (17 questions + 2), aims at gathering information on the use of a target language (and Serbian) in schools, either as the language of schooling, as an optional school subject (i.e., Mother tongue with elements of national culture), or as a language taught outside of school, from the personal experience of the respondents.
Section VI, Institutional support and linguistic landscape (13 questions), includes questions on the possibility to use a target language in the public space, and the existence of publicly visible signage and inscriptions. Section VII, Publications (9 questions), collects data on the type/genre and availability of publications written in each of the encompassed linguistic varieties. Section VIII, Media (4 questions + 10), gathers information on the use of a target linguistic variety in various types of media, and the interviewees’ personal experience with them. Section IX, Religious service (4 questions + 3), explores if a target variety is employed in the religious service and religious publications. Section X, Cultural events (9 questions + 3), elicits information on the existence of cultural events and manifestations dedicated to a particular community or to a target linguistic variety.
Section XI, Language proficiency self-assessment (8 questions), asks interviewees to self-evaluate their linguistic competence in a target variety and Serbian on a five-point scale, across language comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Section XII, Speakers’ attitudes towards their own language (5 questions), investigates attitudes of interviewees towards a target linguistic variety and Serbian. Section XIII, Ethnic and cultural identity (2 questions), includes questions on the importance of a target language for each interviewee personally and for (cultural) identity of a given community. Section XIV, Language preservation and revitalization (8 questions), tests the existence of activities which focus on the preservation or revitalization of the target variety, and their relevance from the interviewees’ perspective. Section XV, Demographic information about the speaker (16 questions + 2), collects data such as age, gender, marital status, national and religious identity, education, employment, and place of birth and living. Speakers may decline to answer any of the questions in this or other sections, while their identity in the database is hidden. Section XVI, Final remarks (2 questions), offers respondents the possibility to add whichever piece of information they wish to, make comments on the questionnaire, or give contact to researchers if they want to.
The pilot questionnaire was created and administered orally, in face-to-face surveys, in Serbian, so as to allow for the uniformity of the methodology in fieldwork research. This was possible given that all interviewees who participated in the research speak Serbian as they are either bilingual in their minority language and Serbian, or monolingual in Serbian. Bearing in mind that the project investigates language vulnerability and endangerment, whether the interviewees actually spoke the target language and at which level of proficiency was not a key factor for selecting them. What was the most important was the fact that they belonged to the target (linguistic) community.
Based on the feedback from the pilot fieldwork, the questionnaire was shortened and adapted into the main version of the questionnaire, which was administered on a larger sample in fieldwork research in 2023, and the data analyses are currently in progress. Although created in Serbian and aiming at collecting data for language usage in Serbia, the questionnaire could easily be translated into other languages and adapted to fit the needs of particular countries or linguistic communities.
4.3 Data acquisition and storage
The pilot fieldwork research within the VLingS project was conducted in 2022, in Serbia, in all the linguistic communities included in the project. The goal of fieldwork was to test whether the questions included in the pilot questionnaire conform to the sociolinguistic situation in each community, whether some need to be excluded, reformulated, shortened, or adapted in any other way – taking into account the researchers’ observations and interviewees’ impressions.
Prior to collecting questionnaire data, interviewees were given the consent form to sign. They were informed about the aims of the project, the participating institutions, and the parts of the project (i.e., the questionnaire and language documentation). They were able to withdraw at any moment during the face-to-face interviews, and their responses were subsequently disregarded. After each interviewee signed the informed consent form and completed the questionnaire, the collected data were anonymized, which means that each interviewee was assigned a unique code which incorporates information on the particular variety they speak, the interviewees’ gender, the age category they belong to, the researcher’s initials, and the recording number. The answers to the questionnaire were recorded in the audio format and stored in the Digital Archive of the Institute for Balkan Studies, as well as in a separate VLingS Pilot Archive under a unique code.
The total number of interviewees included in the pilot research was 158.[3] The data were collected in 26 places in Serbia (Figure 1).
The distribution of places covered by the pilot fieldwork research (blue = urban, red = rural).
4.4 Demographic data and linguistic varieties
Interviewees come from both rural and urban areas (33.3 vs 66.7%, respectively), although there is an imbalance in the sample as researchers carried out the pilot fieldwork mainly in urban areas. Settlements were classified as ‘urban’ if they were identified as cities or municipal centers in the statistics publication Municipalities and regions in the Republic of Serbia (Gavrilović 2022). Conversely, those not meeting these criteria were classified as ‘rural’. Interviewees of both sexes participated in the research (57.3% women vs 42.7% men), but women were either more willing to participate or were easier to reach during fieldwork. The option ‘Other’ was not checked by any respondent.
As for the education of the interviewees, the following distribution is obtained: no education (7.1%), unfinished elementary school (10.3%), finished elementary school (17.9%), vocational school (7.7%), high school degree (18.6%), college degree (7.7%), university degree (23.1%), postgraduate/PhD studies (6.4%), and other (1.3%).
For the purpose of this study, the interviewees were divided into four generations, with the following age range, mean age, and distribution within the sample: generation 1 (age range: 18–29; mean = 24.6; 14.6%), generation 2 (age range: 30–44; mean = 36.9; 28.7%), generation 3 (age range: 45–59; mean = 52.9; 27.4%), and generation 4 (age range: 60+; mean = 68.6; 29.3%). The primary motivation for this categorization was to encompass interviewees who are of legal age (over 18) and subsequently distinguish between three generations of language speakers: younger, middle, and older, representing the generations of children, parents, and grandparents. However, fieldwork has revealed instances where children and parents fall within the same generation (the ‘middle’ one). Consequently, we opted to refine our distinctions further and establish a classification, which would fit better within our sociolinguistic research. Our classification also partly overlaps with the one presented in the 2022 Census, specifically identifying the following generations: 15–29, 30–49, 50–64, 65–84, and over 85. In our sample, a disproportion is observed as the smallest number of interviewees belong to the first (youngest) generation. This was due to the availability of speakers in fieldwork.
When it comes to the linguistic background (Section 1, question no.4: Which languages do you use?), the distribution is the following: 48.7% (N = 77) of interviews are bilingual in Serbian and a target linguistic variety, 37.7% (N = 59) of interviewees are multilingual in Serbian, a target variety and one or more other languages, 6.3% (N = 10) bilingual in Serbian and some other language (different from the group of target varieties), and 7% of interviewees (N = 11) are monolingual in Serbian, while a single interviewee mentioned being monolingual in Rusyn, although she/he filled in the questionnaire in Serbian.
The distribution of the target languages and linguistic varieties in the overall sample is presented in Table 2. Not all varieties are equally represented in the sample, given that the sample was created so as to conform to the share of speakers of the target linguistic varieties according to the data available from the 2011 Census (as the 2022 census data collection was in progress), scientific literature and researchers’ expertise on the size of the community. In addition, when asked what the language of their community or ethnic group was, some speakers did not mention the target language, but either Serbian or both languages.
Distribution of target languages and linguistic varieties in the pilot research
| Languagea | ROM | VLA | RUS | BUG | BRO | ARO | MEG | LAD | SER | SER + TARGET |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freq | 58 | 41 | 29 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| % | 36.7 | 25.9 | 18.4 | 5.1 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 3.2 | 3.2 |
aROM: Romani, VLA: Vlach, RUS: Vojvodina Rusyn, BUG: Banat Bulgarian, BRO: Bayash Romanian, ARO: Aromanian, MEG: Megleno-Romanian, LAD: Ladino, SER: Serbian, SER + TARGET: Serbian + the target language/variety.
5 Results and discussion
Having in mind the aims of the present study, the answers to question no.6 from Section I of the VLingS Questionnaire 0.0, General data about linguonyms and language usage, are analyzed in what follows. Question no.6 was: “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?”, and the analysis is based on the classification of respondents’ answers to this question. Out of 158 respondents, 142 provided an answer to this question, while for 16 respondents, the complete lack of an answer was treated as a ‘missing response’. The responses were quite diverse, with a few of them given in the target linguistic variety, therefore not in Serbian, the language of the survey. The primary criterion we used for classification was a set of keywords found within the answers. These keywords encompass various notions associated with the concept of mother tongue, such as the order of language acquisition, individuals involved in language transmission, frequency and contexts of language usage, attitudes toward the language, and other relevant factors. As some of the answers contained more than one category, the first answer was taken into account for classification. When making this decision, we aimed at choosing a unique criterion and preserving consistency in the analysis. In addition, this allowed us to analyze interviewees’ initial associations and minimize the effect of possible cognitive processes such as reflection or reconsideration that may characterize their responses.
For a comprehensive view, Table A1 presents all the answers provided by the respondents (translated into English), along with the linguistic variety of the respondent who provided each answer. In total, eight categories were identified, with some categories further divided into subcategories:
The first language learnt (31 answers)
The language used (most frequently) (11 answers)
The language learnt from the mother (and her family) (18 answers)
The language learnt from parents and household members (spoken at home) (31 answers)
The language of the community and ancestors
The language of the community and environment (6 answers)
The language of the ancestors (13 answers)
The language of culture and identity
The language of culture (1 answer)
The language of identity (8 answers)
The language of the state (3 answers)
Other
Attitudes toward language: positive (4 answers) and negative (3 answers)
Concrete language (5 answers)
Unspecified (7 answers)
No equivalent (1 answer)
5.1 Results: Categories of answers
5.1.1 The first language learnt
The majority of respondents’ answers (N = 31) are based on the order of language acquisition, emphasizing that the mother tongue is their first language, the language they first learnt or the language they started speaking in. In addition, respondents refer to the time period during which they acquired their mother tongue, indicating that it is the language they acquired from birth, from an early age, at the youngest age or during their childhood. In this category, we observe answers provided by the members of almost all communities encompassed by the project, namely, Vlach, Roma, Bayash, Rusyn, and Banat Bulgarian. This suggests that the order of acquisition and the earliest age of acquisition are one of the most prominent characteristics of the mother tongue according to speakers.
5.1.2 The language used (most frequently)
Certain respondents place emphasis on language usage in their answers. The mother tongue is succinctly described as a language one ‘uses’, ‘speaks’ or in which a person ‘expresses oneself’. The frequency of usage is also mentioned in the answers in the sense that it is the language used ‘most’, ‘every day’, while speaking ‘to most of the people’, or even as ‘the main language’. In this category, we also encounter responses from various communities, such as Aromanian, Roma, Rusyn, and Vlach; however, the number of responses in this category is relatively smaller (N = 11).
5.1.3 The language learnt from the mother (and her family)
A substantial number of respondents (N = 18) equate mother tongue with the language acquired from the mother or the maternal side of the family. Unlike other family members, parents in general or family as a whole which are categorized separately (see the next passage), the language learnt from the mother constitutes a separate category, as only the mother is given such a prominent place in the answers. Some respondents explicitly mention that the mother tongue is the language they learnt from their mother, the language their mother taught them or the first language somebody learns from their mother. However, a few of them indicate that it is the language which their mother spoke, without mentioning the process of language transmission or their own language acquisition. In this category, we find answers from the members of almost all communities, namely, Vlach, Roma, Rusyn, Aromanian, Bayash, and Ladino, which implies that, for many speakers, it is indeed the mother who holds the most important role in the minority language transmission.
5.1.4 The language learnt from parents and household members (spoken at home)
A significant number of respondents (N = 31), as many as in the first category, define mother tongue as the language learnt, acquired or inherited from parents (or explicitly from the mother and the father) or the family as a whole. In addition, some respondents note that it is the language spoken by the household members or in the home. In this category, both the mother and the father are given equal roles in language transmission, with a few respondents mentioning grandparents as well. Here, we observe responses from the members of many communities – Bayash, Banat Bulgarian, Megleno-Romanian, Roma, Rusyn, and Vlach. The frequency of responses in this category, as well the diversity of communities from which the answers come from, indicates that parents and family have the primary role in language transmission.
5.1.5 The language of the community or ancestors
For some respondents, mother tongue is associated with the community and environment (N = 6) or their ancestors (N = 13). When it comes to the first subcategory, respondents typically mention the language of the community or the environment, as well as notions such as ‘where I grew up’, ‘the tradition and culture you live in’ or ‘our people’. In this subcategory, we observe answers provided by the members of the Bayash, Roma, and Rusyn communities.
Apart from the community, even more speakers (N = 13) define mother tongue as the language of their origin, their ancestors, their roots, or the history of the people, which suggest the historical importance of the language and long-term language transmission. In this subcategory, we find answers given by the members of the Aromanian, Bayash, Roma, and Vlach communities. However, it is noteworthy that the answers mostly come from the Roma speakers, which is not surprising, as the Roma often proudly mention their origin in the interviews.
5.1.6 The language of culture and identity
Several respondents define mother tongue as the language of culture and identity. One of the respondents, a speaker of the Banat Bulgarian variety, describes mother tongue as the language of (high) culture, of books and magazines, which is understandable, given the long-written tradition in this variety developed since the middle of the nineteenth century (Sikimić and Nomaći 2016). Other respondents (N = 8) highlight the identity aspect of the mother tongue by explicitly mentioning the notion of identity, but associating it with different identity aspects: ‘the identity of the community’, ‘the cultural identity of our nation’, and ‘my identity’. In addition, the identity aspect is reflected in concepts such as ‘our language’, ‘our property’, ‘something (that is) mine’ or ‘mother tongue is what you are’. In this subcategory, the answers are provided by the members of Banat Bulgarian, Roma, and Rusyn communities.
5.1.7 The language of the state
A few respondents (N = 3) defined mother tongue as the language of the state, namely, the three speakers from the Banat Bulgarian, Roma, and Vlach communities. It is noteworthy that the Roma respondent declared both Serbian (the language of the state) and Romani as their mother tongues in the questionnaire, while the Vlach respondent indicated Serbian as their mother tongue. The fact that the Serbian language is explicitly mentioned as the mother tongue justifies the given definition, as none of the minority languages are official state languages in Serbia (see Section 4).
5.1.8 Other
A substantial number of respondents (N = 20) provided diverse answers, which cannot be neatly classified into any of the aforementioned categories. Nevertheless, we categorized them into four subcategories, according to (a) attitudes toward the language expressed by the respondents, (b) answers in which a concrete language is given instead of the definition, (c) unspecified, and (d) no equivalent.
Language perception and attitudes toward the language are the main factors used in defining mother tongue by seven respondents. While four of them describe it as ‘something you cherish’ (used twice in the Banat Bulgarian community), ‘the most beautiful language in the world’, and ‘the sweetest language’, the other three mention that they are not ashamed of speaking their mother tongue. This category significantly differs from the other ones, given that mother tongue is not associated with a particular moment in time when it was learnt, a context of speaking it or particular persons, but to a subjective perception: a positive one, of the speakers themselves, on the one hand, and an implied negative one, of the others, on the other hand, which may trigger a defensive attitude. It should be noted that the mother tongue of all three respondents from the latter category is Romani, usually associated with lower prestige. This emphasis likely stems from the negative perceptions and stereotypes Roma face from non-Roma individuals (Todorović 2014).
Several respondents provided the name of their mother tongue as an answer to this question (N = 5). Notably, this information is also solicited in the prior question of the questionnaire: “What is your mother tongue?”
A relatively high number of respondents (N = 7) gave answers which cannot be neatly classified under any of the aforementioned categories. Interestingly, all the answers come from Roma respondents. Here are some examples: ‘Mother tongue can be anything and everything to me’, ‘Everyone speaks their mother tongue’. It is noteworthy that two answers focus on the verb in the question “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?”, indicating that the language has a high value: “It means a lot to me when I speak my language,” “(It means) A lot, we are always on two names.” It should be noticed that many of the answers are followed by a longer explanation or discussion, which was recorded by the researchers (and marked in the questionnaire as ‘s.r. see recording’).
This last subcategory within the category ‘Other’ also encompasses one unique response: “I’ve never heard the phrase mother tongue used by a Vlach.” This answer was classified separately, distinct from the 16 ‘missing responses’, as it clearly indicates the reason for not providing the definition of the concept.
5.2 The effect of demographic factors
To explore if the given categories of answers depend on demographic factors, we conducted chi-square analyses using the SPSS software, examining the potential influence of age, gender, and education level. The analysis did not reveal any significant effects of age and gender, but it did indicate an effect of education level (χ 2 = 102.436, df = 72, p = 0.011). However, in all analyses, a substantial number of cells exhibited an expected count less than 5, suggesting potential unreliability in the results. In future investigations, the impact of demographic factors should be assessed using a larger sample of responses. Furthermore, regarding the influence of education level, it is important to note that, in the pilot sample that we used in this study, the majority of participants belonged to the Roma community, characterized by lower levels of education. This factor may have contributed to the results and warrants analysis in a more balanced sample.
5.3 Discussion
As mentioned earlier, the VLingS Questionnaire 0.0 was applied to 158 respondents from the vulnerable language communities encompassed by the pilot study. Of the 158 respondents, 142 answered question no. 6 of Section I of the questionnaire, General data about linguonyms and language usage: “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?,” whereas a number of 12 respondents (7.6%) did not give any answer or replied that they did not know.[4]
The 142 answers were grouped into eight categories with subcategories by the authors of this study, based on a set of keywords. Given that the question was an open one, the phrasing of the answers differed widely between the respondents, which made the process of establishing the categories and fitting the answers into them rather lengthy and difficult.
Two categories of answers stand out as gathering the highest number of answers, 62 altogether: The first language learnt (N = 31) and The language learnt from parents and household members (spoken at home) (N = 31). This means that the order of acquisition and the earliest age of acquisition of the language, as well as the persons responsible for transmitting the language, in this case the parents and grandparents, are given equal importance by the respondents. It must be said that several respondents mentioned both the family as the main means of language transmission and the order of acquisition, but their answers were categorized into one or another category by the order of the keywords: e.g., ‘The language you speak in the family, in which your mother talks to you while she breastfeeds you, the language you grow up in’, ‘The language we learn from our parents, the first (language)’, ‘The language you acquire in your family, when you are small’, and ‘The language of the family, the first language’ (Table A1).
Following is the category The language learnt from the mother (and her family) (N = 18), which gives the mother a central place in transmitting the language, putting emphasis on the gender roles. Some respondents explicitly mention not only the mother but also the maternal side of the family. The fact that interviewees, in their responses, actually referred to their mothers, contrasts with the view that the concept of mother tongue relies on invoking the maternal without explicitly referencing the mothers. It is assumed that this concept rather invokes conceptions of family, kinship, motherhood, nation, and state, which emerged in the larger context of social and political transformations (Yildiz 2012, 10). The modern notion of mother tongue also presupposes that “the mother tongue emanates from the mother’s body,” constituting a narrative about origin and identity as well (idem, 12).
Immediately after this category comes the one which gathers answers that equate mother tongue with The language of the ancestors (N = 13), which suggests the historical importance of the language and long-term language transmission within the family. A group of respondents equate mother tongue with The language used (most frequently) (N = 11), which switches the emphasis from the age of language acquisition and persons responsible for language transmission to the usage or frequency of usage of the language. This category partly corresponds to the notion of primary language, used in the sociolinguistic literature (see Bugarski 1997, Jovanović and Simović 2012, Montrul 2012, among others), which puts emphasis on the functional dimension of the languages. The relatively small number of answers in this category could be interpreted in the sense that a mother tongue, i.e., a minority language, is considered primary only by some speakers.
Shortly after follows the category The language of identity (N = 8), with the observation that identity is explicitly mentioned, but associated with different identity aspects by different respondents. Although not numerous, the answers in this category align with previous findings regarding the relationship between language and identity. As five of eight responses in this category come from the members of the Roma community, it is relevant to mention the research on the determinants of the social and cultural identity of the Roma community in Serbia, which showed that language is one of the key markers of identity, along with Romani customs and music (Petrović and Miltojević 2020). Furthermore, an online survey on the revitalization of Romani in Romania showed that 85% of the respondents believe that “Romani should be revitalized because … it is part of Romani culture” (Adamou 2021, 20). On the other hand, it is not surprising that the members of the Vlach community did not provide answers in this category since they display a double, contextual identity, Serbian, and Vlach (or Romanian) (see more in Dimitrijević-Rufu 1998, Sorescu-Marinković and Huțanu 2023, 33).
Several respondents define mother tongue as The language of the community and environment (N = 6), where the notion of community could be understood as referring to the community they belong to, partly overlapping with the ancestors. Finally, a small group (N = 3) equates mother tongue with The language of the state (N = 3), exclusively by respondents who declared that Serbian is their mother tongue.
Even if the sample is too small to draw pertinent conclusions, we notice the tendency of certain linguistic communities to give a certain category of answers. For instance, in the Roma community, the majority of respondents define mother tongue as their first language, the language of their ancestors or of identity, but not as the language they use most frequently. The Vlachs, on the other hand, also consider mother tongue to be the language they learnt first, from the mother and her family, but also from other members of the household, and used most frequently. It remains to be seen whether the main research will confirm the tendencies noticed in the pilot research.
The definition of mother tongue used by the Serbian censuses between 1961 and 2022 was: “the language that a person learned to speak in childhood, i.e. the language that a person considers to be their mother tongue if several languages are spoken in the household.” This only partly overlaps with our findings, given that it mentions the age at which the respondents learned the language, but not the persons responsible for language transmission. Nevertheless, the definition takes into account the attitude of the speakers, giving them the possibility to choose between languages, if more are spoken in the household. This also shows that the census makers were aware of the possible difficulties bilingual or multilingual speakers might face when it comes to choosing between languages. However, this clarification is usually not given by census officers to the interviewed people, who just have to answer what their mother tongue is.
This open question was a surprise to many respondents, provoking them to actively engage in responding. Several respondents, after giving a short answer, went on offering detailed explanations and their view on things, while others, after answering this question and clarifying for themselves the issue, went back to the previous one, “What is your mother tongue?,” and changed their answer. The order of the two questions – the first one asking them to name their mother tongue and the second one asking them to define the notion – may have been reversed in the questionnaire, but we believe that it would not have significantly changed the set of key concepts which the respondents used to define the term. In addition, this kind of change, where the questions logically follow one another, would have probably meant less involvement from the respondents’ side.
The number of respondents who did not answer the question (N = 12) could mean that they have not encountered the concept previously or that they are using it without being able to define it, which supports the idea that mother tongue is a concept widely used, but difficult to define. This could also signal that the question itself is not clear or seems redundant to respondents, especially if we bear in mind that the previous question already asked them to specify their mother tongue. Nevertheless, the impossibility to answer this question might also correlate to the education level of the respondents, since 7 out of 12 respondents have lower levels of education (elementary school or lower). Given the sample size, this should be further investigated on a larger sample.
It is interesting to note that several respondents (N = 7) mention attitudes toward language to explain what mother tongue is to them, which highlights again the highly emotional value of this question. While some of them describe the mother tongue in very appreciative terms, others mention that they are not ashamed of speaking it, which points to the negative perception of their mother tongue by the surrounding population, and subsequently the defensive attitude they adopt. Finally, some of the respondents answered this question in their respective mother tongue, not in Serbian, the language of the questionnaire, which points again to the emotional value of the question.
The diversity of answers provided by the members of minority communities or their difficulty in defining the mother tongue may result from the fact that this concept seems obscure or redundant in multilingual environments. It is strongly tied to the notion of monolingualism, which forces bilingual or multilingual speakers to choose a single language as their ‘unique’ mother tongue. According to Yildiz (2012, 2), in the so-called monolingual paradigm, which dominated from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century, “individuals and social formations are imagined to possess only one ‘true’ language, their ‘mother tongue’, and through this possession, they are organically linked to an exclusive, clearly demarcated ethnicity, culture, and nation.” The responses obtained in our study clearly show that the official language of the state is not perceived as the mother tongue by bilingual communities, which contrasts with the view of the monolingual paradigm which used the mother tongue as a central element in the formation of homogeneous nation-states.
Although some scholars justifiably find the term mother tongue to be “highly ideological, charged and misleading” (Yildiz 2012, 13), and ‘disqualify’ it as a technical term as it is highly metaphorical (Bugarski 2017, 745), in the region we are dealing with it is the only one in use. The opinions of the community members suggest that in the case of multilingual minorities, this concept may be convenient as it refers to the language closely related to the intimate concepts of family, community, and origin. Despite the diverse answers, our respondents overwhelmingly chose their minority language as their mother tongue – which may signal that this concept may be useful for language preservation, as the language transmission within the family, as well as the notions of identity, origin, and community serve as vital elements in the definition of the concept of mother tongue.
It is also noteworthy that the communities included in the study lack a home country where their varieties, often non-standardized, could be employed as official state languages. Consequently, they lack external institutional and educational support, as well as typical mechanisms for preserving their language and cultural identity. In addition, some varieties face controversies related to language planning and standardization processes (see, among others, Lukin Saitović 2018 for Romani, and Sorescu-Marinković and Huțanu 2023, 2024 for Vlach). In light of these issues, the heterogeneous perceptions of mother tongue are not surprising.
6 Conclusions
As we have shown, in most recent research, the authors prefer to use various terms to refer to non-mainstream languages in bilingual and multilingual repertoires, such as first language, home language, heritage language, or minority language, many of them themselves problematic, to avoid mother tongue, which has been deemed imprecise and misleading, as it is obviously gendered and does not correspond any longer to the reality of language transmission. However, as our research was done in Serbia, where maternji jezik is the only term used in censuses, the education context and public domain, using the term mother tongue in both the (pilot) questionnaire and the subsequent study was the most appropriate choice.
While the concept of mother tongue, and the plethora of related terms, holds significance across various disciplines, spanning demographic studies, linguistics, sociology, and psycholinguistics, scholars have predominantly concentrated on defining the term within the confines of their respective fields. Our study, however, stands as a distinct and pioneering effort by engaging with actual speakers to define the term. The findings of the pilot research on vulnerable language communities in Serbia show that the speakers give equal importance to the period of language acquisition, in early childhood, and the role of the family in language transmission for defining mother tongue. This points to two important conclusions of our study. On the one hand, the diversity of responses suggests that the definition of mother tongue provided in the censuses in the Republic of Serbia does not overlap with the social reality, as the actual members of the communities perceive the concept as being more heterogeneous than assumed in the censuses. Therefore, the results of our study may be applied in reconsidering both the definition of the term mother tongue in the census, as well as in advocating for the option of declaring multiple languages as mother tongues. On the other hand, the fact that numerous respondents connect mother tongue not just to the maternal figure, but to the order of language acquisition and the earliest age of acquisition, in a family context, shows that, although the term itself is gendered, the speakers do not read it literally.
Further, we must say that the categories of answers could have been defined differently, which would have led us to slightly different results. As we have mentioned, in the case of answers which contained more sets of keywords, we used the first association to fit them into a specific category. Had this question not been an open one, but a multiple-choice one, the results might have also looked different. Nevertheless, the question will not be changed in the final version of the questionnaire, as we established that it offers great insight into the reasoning and attitudes of bilingual speakers of vulnerable languages regarding their mother tongue. As some of the respondents gave long, narrative answers to this question, the longer responses could then be analyzed qualitatively, as well.
Although the question will stay the same in the final version of the questionnaire, it must be said that the sample of respondents would be larger overall and in each community. This would allow us to make direct comparisons between different communities and investigate whether the perception of mother tongue differs among them. Since the sample will be balanced in terms of demographic factors such as gender, age, and education, additional correlations may be explored as well. Nevertheless, we do not expect a change in the existing categories, but rather more pronounced tendencies for certain answers in each of the language communities encompassed.
Finally, one must remember that the respondents are speakers not only of minority, but vulnerable languages, so the answers might be slightly different in other bilingual or multilingual contexts, where the languages in question are not endangered. Nevertheless, we are certain that bilingual speakers all over the world have different views on the notion of mother tongue, and these diverse views are enriching and worth studying.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their gratitude to all the interviewees included in the research, as well as to the valuable and insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers that greatly improved the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to Dušan Vlajić, who assisted in the creation of the pilot version of the database discussed in the manuscript; Svetlana Ćirković, Mirjana Ćorković, Stefana Paunović Rodić, Neda Pons, Janko Ramač, Anđela Redžić, and Dalibor Sokolović, who collected data in fieldwork research and filled in the database; Svetlana Ćirković, who created the coding system meant to anonymize the data collected during the research.
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Funding information: The manuscript is the result of the project ‘Vulnerable Languages and Linguistic Varieties in Serbia’ (VLingS), funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia (grant number: 7736100) within the program IDEAS (2022–2024). The funding was provided through the Budget of the Republic of Serbia, and the World Bank project – the Serbia Accelerating Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project (SAIGE). The manuscript is also the result of the MM’s and ASM’s activity at the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA), which is financed by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia based on the Agreement on the Implementation and Financing of Scientific Research of the Institute in 2024, no. 451-03-66/2024-03 dated 26.01.2024.
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Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and consented to its submission to the journal, reviewed all the results and approved the final version of the manuscript. VS and MM created the pilot version of the database discussed in the manuscript. MM and ASM collected data in fieldwork research and filled in the database. MM, ASM, and VS are responsible for the conceptualization, methodology, data analysis, and writing and editing the manuscript.
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Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.
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Informed consent: Informed consent has been obtained from all individuals included in this study.
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Data availability statement: All data analyzed during the study (the answers to question no.6 of Section I of the VLingS Questionnaire 0.0, “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?”) are included in Table A1 of the manuscript. The audio recordings of the transcribed answers are kept in the internal Digital Archive of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA in Belgrade (DABI) and are currently available only to the project members; they can be made available to other researchers upon reasonable request from the corresponding author, after signing the usage protocol.
Appendix
Categories of answers to the question “What does the notion of mother tongue mean to you?” in the VLingS Questionnaire 0.0
| Category | Answers | Language | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The first language learnt | 1. The language I learnt first, I – Serbian, but my mom Romanian from my grandma | BRO | |
| 2. The language I have learnt from birth and the one we use in the family | BRO | ||
| 3. The first contact with family members is realized in that language | BUG | ||
| 4. The language you learn from an early age | ROM | ||
| 5. The language from birth | ROM | ||
| 6. When we were born, they spoke Romani to us | ROM | ||
| 7. As a child I spoke Serbian | ROM | ||
| 8. Romani; when our children are born, we teach them Romani first | ROM | ||
| 9. Something you were born with, something you inherited from your mother, dejaći čhib (the language of the mother) | ROM | ||
| 10. The language I speak, but nobody has specifically taught me. The language I started speaking in | ROM | ||
| 11. The language we have acquired in early childhood | RUS | ||
| 12. The language we learn from birth, in which we think and talk to our closest (relatives) | RUS | ||
| 13. The first (language), ours | RUS | ||
| 14. The language somebody started speaking in for the first time | RUS | ||
| 15. The language you acquire in childhood from your parents | RUS | ||
| 16. The language I first mastered in the home, when I was small | RUS | ||
| 17. The language we have acquired from birth | VLA | ||
| 18. The language I started speaking in, the first (language) | VLA | ||
| 19. The language you started speaking in. I don’t know why we don’t call it father tongue | VLA | ||
| 20. From an early age, in the family | VLA | ||
| 21. The one which I learnt first | VLA | ||
| 22. Starting speaking and learning everything in Vlach | VLA | ||
| 23. The first words you learn | VLA | ||
| 24. The first language | VLA | ||
| 25. The first language | VLA | ||
| 26. The first language I learnt to speak and the language I think in | VLA | ||
| 27. The first (language) I mastered, before school | VLA | ||
| 28. (The language) I got in contact first | VLA | ||
| 29. That what I first learned. The meaning of things | VLA | ||
| 30. The language I have been speaking from birth | VLA | ||
| 31. The first language, the language of the mother | VLA | ||
| 2. The language used (most frequently) | 1. That which I use most, from childhood, in the house/ at home | ARO | |
| 2. The language in which one writes, speaks, understand each other | ARO | ||
| 3. The main language | ROM | ||
| 4. I don’t know what it means, the language I use | ROM | ||
| 5. The language I speak | RUS | ||
| 6. (The language) in which one speaks | RUS | ||
| 7. (The language) I talk to most of the people | RUS | ||
| 8. The language in which we express ourselves | VLA | ||
| 9. The language you use, the language you speak | VLA | ||
| 10. The language I use | VLA | ||
| 11. The language you use every day | VLA | ||
| 3. The language learnt from the mother (and her family) | 1. The language of my mother, of my family | ARO | |
| 2. That what my mother carried over to me, my grandmother and all the mothers | BRO | ||
| 3. The first language somebody learns from their mother | LAD | ||
| 4. The language of the mother’s family | ROM | ||
| 5. From the mother | ROM | ||
| 6. From my mother’s side of the family they didn’t speak Romani, only my dad did. I grew up with my mom | ROM | ||
| 7. It is your mother, the language of the mother | ROM | ||
| 8. The first language your mother speaks | RUS | ||
| 9. The language your mother speaks | RUS | ||
| 10. The language your mom taught you | RUS | ||
| 11. The language your mother speaks, the language used in the family | RUS | ||
| 12. The language I learnt from my mother | VLA | ||
| 13. The language my mother and my grandmother taught me | VLA | ||
| 14. The language your mother taught you | VLA | ||
| 15. The language my mother spoke | VLA | ||
| 16. Śe ńa-nvățat mama șî muma (What my mother and my grandmother taught us.) | VLA | ||
| 17. My mother was born as Vlach and spoke Vlach | VLA | ||
| 18. From the mother, in the house | VLA | ||
| 4. The language learnt from parents and household members (spoken at home) | 1. The language I learnt from my parents | BRO | |
| 2. The language of the household members, of the household and the environment | BUG | ||
| 3. What comes from home | BUG | ||
| 4. What is being spoken in the family | MEG | ||
| 5. The language which is spoken at home, it starts from the family | ROM | ||
| 6. The language which comes from the parents | ROM | ||
| 7. The language of the family | ROM | ||
| 8. The language of the family | ROM | ||
| 9. The language of the parents, and the parents are Gypsies | ROM | ||
| 10. The language of the parents, of the grandparents | ROM | ||
| 11. From my parents, the family is Roma | ROM | ||
| 12. From the parents | ROM | ||
| 13. That is from my mom, from my dad | ROM | ||
| 14. The language my parents use, my surroundings | ROM | ||
| 15. The language you acquire in the family from the youngest age | RUS | ||
| 16. It is the language of the family, the language I speak best and I use | RUS | ||
| 17. The language I speak with my parents, it can even be the language of the environment | RUS | ||
| 18. The language I inherited from my parents | RUS | ||
| 19. The language I learnt from my mother and my father | RUS | ||
| 20. The language you speak in the family, in which your mother talks to you while she breastfeeds you, the language you grow up in | RUS | ||
| 21. The language I speak, the language of my parents | RUS | ||
| 22. The language spoken in the family | RUS | ||
| 23. The language of the family | RUS | ||
| 24. The language we learn from our parents, the first (language) | VLA | ||
| 25. The language you acquire in your family, when you are small | VLA | ||
| 26. I learn it from my parents | VLA | ||
| 27. My father and mother are Vlach, I remember that language from birth | VLA | ||
| 28. What has been spoken in my house, from my mother, my father | VLA | ||
| 29. The language of the family, the first language | VLA | ||
| 30. The language which my mom, my parents spoke | VLA | ||
| 31. The language I learnt at home | VLA | ||
| 5. The language of the community or ancestors | |||
| a) the language of the community and environment | 1. Where I grew up, whom we socialize with | BRO | |
| 2. The language of our community | ROM | ||
| 3. The language of the community | ROM | ||
| 4. You should speak the language of the tradition and culture you live in | ROM | ||
| 5. The language of the environment | RUS | ||
| 6. The language of the environment, the language of identity | RUS | ||
| b) the language of the ancestors | 1. The language of my origin | ARO | |
| 2. Mother tongue is for me origin, the language of my origin | BRO | ||
| 3. A group of people who inherited the language a long time ago | ROM | ||
| 4. The history of the people, the origin | ROM | ||
| 5. The language of the ancestors, of the parents, of the family | ROM | ||
| 6. The language of my roots | ROM | ||
| 7. We speak it to each other, my origin | ROM | ||
| 8. Origin | ROM | ||
| 9. Origin, existence, life | ROM | ||
| 10. You are born as a Roma, and that is from your parents, from your ancestors | ROM | ||
| 11. Born from Roma people | ROM | ||
| 12. Znači să nu să piardă poreklo, că astă limbă nu am învățat de la școală. (It means not to lose our origin, because we did not learn this language in school.) | VLA | ||
| 13. My ancestors, my mom did not know Serbian | VLA | ||
| 6. The language of culture and identity | |||
| a) The language of (high) culture | 1. The language of culture, of books, magazines | BUG | |
| b) The language of identity | 1. Our property, the identity of the community | BUG | |
| 2. Mother tongue is what you are | ROM | ||
| 3. Our language | ROM | ||
| 4. Our language, the national language | ROM | ||
| 5. Our language, the Roma language | ROM | ||
| 6. Preserving the cultural identity of our nation | ROM | ||
| 7. I am not bilingual, Serbian is my second language. Rusyn is for me my identity. That what I am | RUS | ||
| 8. Something mine | RUS | ||
| 7. The language of the state | 1. The language of the state | BUG | |
| 2. The language the nation uses, which is spoken in the state | ROM | ||
| 3. The language of the state I was born in | VLA | ||
| 8. Other | |||
| a) Attitudes towards language (+ and -) | 1. Something you cherish | BUG | |
| 2. Something you cherish | BUG | ||
| 3. The most beautiful (language) which exists in the world | ROM | ||
| 4. It is the sweetest language, which is priceless. You must not forget it, even if you change several countries | VLA | ||
| 1. I am not ashamed. (s.r.)a | ROM | ||
| 2. Roma woman, I am not ashamed. (s.r.) | ROM | ||
| 3. You cannot run away from your language | ROM | ||
| b) Concrete language | 1. The mother tongue is Macedonian | ARO | |
| 2. For me it’s the same whether Romani or Serbian. (s.r.) | ROM | ||
| 3. Interesting question. My opinions are divided. I dream in Vlach, but my mother tongue is Serbian | VLA | ||
| 4. For example, Serbian and Vlach | VLA | ||
| 5. Serbian | VLA | ||
| c) Unspecified | 1. But značil ma (it means a lot to me) when I speak my language | ROM | |
| 2. Mother tongue can be anything and everything to me. I am Roma. (s.r.) | ROM | ||
| 3. A lot, we are always on two names. (s.r.) | ROM | ||
| 4. Everybody has their nation. (s.r.) | ROM | ||
| 5. That’s how we were born | ROM | ||
| 6. Everyone speaks their mother tongue | ROM | ||
| 7. When we speak to Roma people, we understand, we teach our children | ROM | ||
| d) No equivalent | 1. I’ve never heard the phrase “mother tongue” used by a Vlach. (s.r.) | VLA | |
a S.r. stands for ‘see recording’, which means that a longer explanation or discussion followed after the answer, which was recorded by the researchers.
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- Request for confirmation sequences in Egyptian Arabic
- Request for confirmation sequences in Yurakaré
- Request for confirmation sequences in Hebrew
- Request for confirmation sequences in Czech
Articles in the same Issue
- Research Articles
- Describing smell: A comparative analysis of active smell lexicon in Estonian and German
- The sound of the Italian comic book: Representing noises, senses, and emotions across 80 years
- Framing victimhood, making war: A linguistic historicizing of secessionist discourses
- Under pressure: Exploring the impact of cognitive factors on clitics placement in L2 Slovak
- The syntax of non-canonical coordination in Jordanian Arabic: An experimental investigation
- Suffixation in Zhangzhou
- Alignment in Vamale, South Oceanic: Diachrony and contact influence
- A corpus-based study of epicene pronouns used by Macedonian learners of English
- Iconicity as the motivation for morphophonological metathesis and truncation in Nigerian Pidgin
- ‘Little Arabia’ on Buddhist land: Exploring the linguistic landscape of Bangkok’s ‘Soi Arab’ enclave
- Mother tongue in Serbia: A speakers’ perspective on the meaning of the concept
- Role of six turn-initial demonstrative and emotive particles in Lithuanian
- Verbal numeral classifiers in languages of Eastern Eurasia: A typological survey
- The multilingual repertoire of the Haitian community in Chapecó (SC, Brazil): Patterns of linguistic evolution in a South–South migration context
- ‘Aquí toman mucho sopa’: Linguistic variables as predictors of non-standard gender agreement production in Basque Spanish
- Data-driven identification of situated meanings in corpus data using Latent Class Analysis
- Adverbs and adverbials in contemporary Arabic syntax: A phase-based account
- Spatial effects with missing data
- Instability of interactives: The case of interjections in Gorwaa
- Linguistic explication of rational and irrational knowledge types in the content of toponyms (on the material of the linguocultural dictionary)
- Review Articles
- Discourse-related expletives: Challenges and opportunities
- Vietnamese tense marking since the seventeenth century: A historiographical analysis
- Special Issue: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Language, edited by Külli Habicht, Tiit Hennoste, Helle Metslang, and Renate Pajusalu - Part II
- Editorial: Exploring subjectivity and intersubjectivity in language
- Two past forms inducing conjectural or non-intrusive questions
- A typological approach to intersubjective uses of the Finnish clitic markers =hAn and =se from the perspectives of engagement and their interrelations with subject person
- Repetition and variation in a Finnish music-related discourse: A case study
- Biased interrogatives in Camuno
- On the overlapping discourse functions of Spanish ‘cómo que’ and French ‘comment ça’ interrogatives
- Repetition in discourses across languages and genres
- Reducing the severity of incidents or emergency in Estonian emergency calls
- Special Issue: Request for confirmation sequences across ten languages, edited by Martin Pfeiffer & Katharina König - Part I
- Request for confirmation sequences in Mandarin Chinese
- Request for confirmation sequences in Korean
- Request for confirmation sequences in British and American English
- Request for confirmation sequences in German
- Request for confirmation sequences in Low German
- Request for confirmation sequences in Egyptian Arabic
- Request for confirmation sequences in Yurakaré
- Request for confirmation sequences in Hebrew
- Request for confirmation sequences in Czech
