Completely forgetting your first language if not used, is it possible?

[mentecuerpo]

I remember over 30 years ago, I was at Hospital Nacional Rosales, the biggest state hospital in El Salvador. I was a student back then, because of being a very poor country, each medical unit was a big hall with 40 beds distribute in two lines, each line parallel to each other. When we round the patient, we will not go to different rooms, we will just move from one be to another.

Anyways, every patient and every employee at the hospital was exclusively Salvadorian Spanish speaker only.

One day as I was rounding, something caught my eye, there was a patient critically ill, possibly at his last hours, who was in a delirious state, with an altered mental status, he was speaking nonstop as if having a conversation with someone who was not there. The surprising thing is that this patient was not speaking Spanish. He was speaking in a foreign language I could not identified. I don’t know if this person, who look like any other Salvadorian mestizo will look, lived a double life. On the one hand, he was a regular Salvadoran person, on the other, he could have been a secret agent from an unidentified land, living a double life. Unfortunately, this will be a mystery because the patient died within a few hours and not much was known about who he really was. If we only had a polyglot among us, the mystery would have been clarified.

I think this patient probably was born in another continent with a mother tongue I could not identified. Maybe, he spoke Spanish perfectly like any other person in El Salvador, maybe he never had a need to use his native first language in El Salvador, but at the time he entered the delirium word, his language came back and I heard it. I just hope the conversations he was having with the other person that only he could see was a pleasant one, and the delirium imaginary person helped him on his final trip to the afterlife, or should I say, to the eternal life.

So if someone learns his first language for the first 5 years of his life, and then never uses it again (think a 5-yo child adopted from Rumania to America) can than language be latent in the mind just waiting to be activated, or it gets vanished forever.
My cousin lived in El Salvador for his first five years of his life, then moved to the US and never ever again was spoken in Spanish as a child and had no contact with the Spanish language. When I visited years later, he spoke no Spanish and could not remember a single word. Interesting, I wonder, if he takes Spanish lessons or moves back to El Salvador, will he be able to bring the Spanish back to life?

[Cèid Donn]

From all anecdotal evidence I've personally come across in my language studies, in particular regards to heavily minoritized languages like Celtic languages and indigenous languages of the Americas, I am inclined to say, "Not likely." The individual you mention in your post sounds like a number of stories I've heard from Central and South Americans about indigenous people who had assimilated into the majority population and ended up in a hospital or hospice with some illness, injury or disability that affected their mental and cognitive abilities where they would only speak in their 1st language, often to the bewilderment of caretakers, some of whom had believed no indigenous people were left in their countries. How many of those stories are actual accounts and others a kind of folkloric aggregation of similar occurrences transmitted from community to community like a sort of oral tradition, I cannot say. However, there are some similar stories among Celtic communities about this as well, where care for elderly and disabled people is often done by people who only speak that country's dominate language. It's been an issue seeing that it's extremely difficult to properly care for a patient with dementia or Alzheimer or TBI when they no longer appear able to speak the dominant language they learned as a L2 and may have even used dominantly for much of their schooling and adult life and now only speak in a language that caretakers do not understand.

I'm not someone who really obsesses over linguistics or neuroscience, but I do think our mother tongue represents something very fundamental in the way our brains work, and individually, in how our ability to understand the world, relate to it and to process information that we receive from it is shaped. It seems to have a largely unrecognized role in shaping our personalities as well as many of our early life experiences. Language is itself a system for understanding and communicating information and the way our brains works suggest our brains process information in ways dependent on a deeply entwined relationship with our first language. I personally am of the opinion that something that fundamental would be extremely difficult to uproot and replace, even if the speaker forgets "accidental" elements (in the Aristotelian sense) of the language, like certain vocabulary and phrases.

[Speakeasy]

mentecuerpo, first, once again, thank you for raising such an interesting topic. In addition, please allow me to express my deep admiration for your narrative style, you are a great story-teller! As to the topic itself, I believe that it has been discussed at least once on the forum. Nevertheless, your introduction serves as an excellent opportunity to revive it and to add new comments. While I cannot add anything of substance from my own experiences, perhaps the following information might be of some use to others:

Language Attrition
Language attrition is the process of losing a native, or first, language. This process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first. Such interference from a second language is likely experienced to some extent by all bilinguals, but is most evident among speakers for whom a language other than their first has started to play an important, if not dominant, role in everyday life; these speakers are more likely to experience language attrition. It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used.

There are several factors which affect the process. Frequent exposure and use of a particular language is often assumed adequate to maintain the native language system intact. However, research has often failed to confirm this prediction. A positive attitude towards the potentially attriting language or its speech community and motivation to retain the language are other factors which may reduce attrition. These factors are too difficult to confirm by research. However, a person's age can well predict the likelihood of attrition; children are demonstrably more likely to lose their first language than adults.

These factors are similar to those that affect second language acquisition, and the two processes are sometimes compared. However, the overall impact of these factors is far less than that for second language acquisition.
Language attrition results in a decrease of language proficiency. The current consensus is that it manifests itself first and most noticeably in speakers' vocabulary (in their lexical access and their mental lexicon), while grammatical and especially phonological representations appear more stable among speakers who emigrated after puberty. – Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_attrition

Can you lose your native language?
It’s possible to forget your first language, even as an adult. But how, and why, this happens is complex and counter-intuitive. I’m sitting in my kitchen in London, trying to figure out a text message from my brother. He lives in our home country of Germany. We speak German to each other, a language that’s rich in quirky words, but I’ve never heard this one before: fremdschämen. ‘Stranger-ashamed’?

I’m too proud to ask him what it means. I know that eventually, I’ll get it. Still, it’s slightly painful to realise that after years of living abroad, my mother tongue can sometimes feel foreign. Most long-term migrants know what it’s like to be a slightly rusty native speaker. The process seems obvious: the longer you are away, the more your language suffers. But it’s not quite so straightforward.

In fact, the science of why, when and how we lose our own language is complex and often counter-intuitive. It turns out that how long you’ve been away doesn’t always matter. Socialising with other native speakers abroad can worsen your own native skills. And emotional factors like trauma can be the biggest factor of all.
You might also like:
• The words that change what colour we see
• Do you have a secret British accent?
• The ‘untranslatable’ emotions you never knew you had
It’s also not just long-term migrants who are affected, but to some extent anyone who picks up a second language.
“The minute you start learning another language, the two systems start to compete with each other,” says Monika Schmid, a linguist at the University of Essex.

Schmid is a leading researcher of language attrition, a growing field of research that looks at what makes us lose our mother tongue. In children, the phenomenon is somewhat easier to explain since their brains are generally more flexible and adaptable. Until the age of about 12, a person’s language skills are relatively vulnerable to change. Studies on international adoptees have found that even nine-year-olds can almost completely forget their first language when they are removed from their country of birth … Source: BBC (by Sophie Hardach) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180606-can-you-lose-your-native-language

[Decidida]

I tried searching, but could not find it. There was an article discussed that mentioned holocaust victims and other trauma survivers being more likely to forget a language that was used while enduring the trauma.

[Lawyer&Mom]

My husbands grandpa immigrated to the US from Belgium, age 11. I am told that he then only spoke English until he reverted to French on his death bed. My mother-in-law, who was caring for him, was taken aback, she didn’t know he could still speak French at all.

[MorkTheFiddle]

The native language of one of my college professors was German. He told us at the time he had been in the USA for 25 years, had spoken English that whole time and could no longer speak or understand German. At that time (when he had been in the USA for 25 years), I would estimate his age to be 40+. So if he was 40+, then he left Germany around the age of 15. Whether he said anymore about it, or whether we asked him any questions about it, I can't remember. He may have been a Holocaust survivor, but never said so, so far as I can recall.

[mentecuerpo]

mentecuerpo, first, once again, thank you for raising such an interesting topic. In addition, please allow me to express my deep admiration for your narrative style, you are a great story-teller! As to the topic itself, I believe that it has been discussed at least once on the forum. Nevertheless, your introduction serves as an excellent opportunity to revive it and to add new comments. While I cannot add anything of substance from my own experiences, perhaps the following information might be of some use to others:

Language Attrition
Language attrition is the process of losing a native, or first, language. This process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first. Such interference from a second language is likely experienced to some extent by all bilinguals, but is most evident among speakers for whom a language other than their first has started to play an important, if not dominant, role in everyday life; these speakers are more likely to experience language attrition. It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used.

Speakeasy, thank you for your kind words and your encouragement to me as a new forum member. I enjoy reading your blogs with the academic depth you approach your topics; I learn a lot from your blogs.

Thank you for your contribution and for bringing this topic of Language Attrition. And that’s it! Language attrition, I did not know the concept. That explains why my cousin is unable to speak a word of Spanish despite being his first language for his first five years of life after immigrating to the USA. It also explains my deterioration on my native Spanish.

This is a true linguistic phenomenon that I have notices on myself. After living and working in the USA since 2008, my native Spanish has taken a heavy toll. Since I use English at work, and that almost all my content consumption is in other languages but Spanish, I can find myself at time struggling to find the right Spanish word. Also, the English language now interferes with my Spanish production, and unwanted English words come first to mind and then I need to retrieve in my word bank the equivalent or desired Spanish word.

Granted, I still think in Spanish most of the time, it is my mental procession language. I can think in English or Italian at will, but Spanish is the one that comes first in my mind. The USA is a Spanish speaking country too but most of the Spanish I use it is “street Spanish” or everyday Spanish, not academic in any form or structure. Because of my age, I think Spanish will continue to dominate all my other languages but I have seen a decline. I am not learning new words, and I don’t use literary fancy words in my daily interactions with this romance language. The fact that I have stopped reading novels and literary work in Spanish has contribute enormously to this attrition phenomenon.

On the other hand, when I am at work, and get really into a topic speaking fluently and fast in my L2 my Spanish comes out naturally and unwelcomed and I must fight it because I am speaking English. The moral of the story, I need to maintain my Spanish, I should read a few pages of a Spanish novel daily and be more involve in the Spanish blogs of this language forum for sure.

[mentecuerpo]

The native language of one of my college professors was German. He told us at the time he had been in the USA for 25 years, had spoken English that whole time and could no longer speak or understand German. At that time (when he had been in the USA for 25 years), I would estimate his age to be 40+. So if he was 40+, then he left Germany around the age of 15. Whether he said anymore about it, or whether we asked him any questions about it, I can't remember. He may have been a Holocaust survivor, but never said so, so far as I can recall.

Greetings MorkTheFiddle,
Recently, I have been remembering a lot about my youth, I think this is a natural process of aging, more things to remember, more life experiences. Anyways, When I was 16-yo I visited my cousin in the USA, he introduced me to a man who had fought in WWII and was married to his German wife, to this date I remember the conversation I had with him as we played chess and drank coffee. He said that he had an Elephant’s memory and that he learnt German as a young American soldier stationed in Germany. He met his German wife there, and both came to permanently reside in the US after his military term was completed.
He told me that the surprising thing over the years was that his wife had completely forgotten her L1 German (the wife acknowledged this fact too, she was there) and he mentioned that he could still remember many German words thanks to his prodigious “Elephant’s memory.” I remembered this expression because I found it interesting that in Spanish we also say, “memoria de elefante.” As we referred to those gifted with a superior memory. By the way, I wonder if this is literary or a fact, that Elephants have a superior memory well among other species of the animal kingdom too, but I guess, this is a conversation for another forum.

[AnthonyLauder]

Here in the Czech republic, many people fled during communism, and returned many years later, often having spoken no Czech during all those years. Charles University, in Prague, offered year-long courses for those who had completely forgotten Czech. They had to start, in many cases, right from the absolute beginning. So, they mixed these folks in with foreigners who were learning Czech for the first time.

However, the Czechs who had "forgotten the language completely" were magically learning the language much much faster than everybody else. Even though they really believed themselves to have forgotten everything, their rate of progress made it impossible for the University to keep them in a class with non-Czechs. Consequently, the university creating a separate course, especially for such people, which went at a much faster pace.

Having said that, one of the professors told me that this Czech group were superb at picking up the spoken language, and could soon speak it flawlessly, but many struggled with learning grammar formally, just as much as those who were completely new to the language. Even though they will have had formal grammar lessons during childhood. That is, the "skill" seems to have returned quickly, whereas the factual knowledge had pretty much been wiped out.

[Cavesa]

Yes, AnthonyLauder is right. There are also huge differences between people, who kept at least some passive contact with the language, and those who kept none at all. In the times before the internet, the most common way to stay in touch was reading books, when available. And while the relearning of the language was much faster for the people who had forgotten it, I don't think it is caused only by the fact Czech had been their native language. When I was relearning a language I had spoken worse and then not at all for years, I was seemingly not knowing anything anymore and then learning it fast too.

But to the story in the original post: this can happen. A friend of mine used to work in a centre for seniors, including those with significant progress of the Alzheimer's disease. They had a patient of Russian origin. An educated woman, who had lived in the Czech Republic for decades, with very good Czech skills. I don't know how much she had been using her Russian (the stereotype of the Russian natives sticking to the language unless forced to use Czech applies only to some parts of the minority. Especially the oldest and least vocal group, having arrived in the 1920's, is well integrated and Czech speaking). But as the disease usually takes away the recent memories before the ancient ones, she forgot Czech at some point. Both actively and passively, and suddenly spoke and understood only Russian. And there was no Russian speaking staff, so the communication was really hard and she must have felt even more isolated, than is usual.

We'll need to get used to such situations and prepare for them. Immigrants are part of our nations and communities, and healthcare (when you're in the role of the patient) is one of the very few areas, where I don't completely believe in the golden rule "you move abroad=you learn the language". We are somehow getting used to treating visiting foreigners, or even the immigrants with weak language skills (typically the older people, who have followed their children to a new country). But part of the people now totally functional in the local language will revert to their first language to some extent, some of them completely. And even if we agreed on the ethical side, there will be no way to make them relearn the language.