Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
This is the important part. They didn`t mix while you were acquiring your first language. If they had been mixing from day one you would not have had the background to be able to figure out which bit belonged to one language and which belonged to another.
As an infant acquiring a language for the first time, without some rule to show that languages are separate, there is no way to distinguish between them. It isn`t underestimating at all. Even adults cannot do this.
As an example, let us say that you are dropped into a situation where you interact with people who do not speak a language you are familiar with in any way. If they speak to you mixing two or more unfamiliar languages together, you will have no way to know where one begins and the other ends. In fact, you will have no idea at all that they are mixing! And if you pick up the language, you will pick up this mixed form. This is what happens when an infant is exposed to mixed languages from day one with no indication of the lines between them.
On the other hand, let`s say that you go somewhere and are talking to people who use a mix of a language you may not be a good speaker of, but that know quite a bit of. You will probably be able to tell pretty easily which parts belong to language 1 and which belong to language 2 - even if you don`t know the language all that well, it will be fairly clear from the feel, word form, and grammar differences. This is what happens when a child has exposure to a single language long enough to acquire a great part of it. (What happened with you.)
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Apologies, I think I replied to your post without reading everything about this discussion. I assumed that you were saying to not mix languages until for example they are in school or something because of what you said about speaking only in Japanese to your child. I remember seeing a picture maybe a year ago and he was already in school, so I assumed!
But now, I think it's clearer! Yes, I guess there does need to be a degree of separation! For my niece, I've always spoken to her in Kabyle (one of the berber dialects), whereas her father and mother only speak to her in French. Now, she'll be 3 in a couple of months, so she's already speaking. With me, even though I only taught her vocabulary. Like, when she played with a toy car as a baby, I would say Car in Kabyle. Now, I still do the same thing... Hopefully I haven't confused her, lol.