Mother tongue is the language that a person learns in the society he/she lives especially from his/her mother by imitating herself which begins from the period of infancy and also mother tongue is the language that he/she expresses him/herself best. Vardar (1980:20) defines mother tongue as, "[Mother tongue] is the language which is learned for…

Using Hindi and Urdu as examples, illustrates the shortcomings in the definition of South Asian languages that has been attempted in Britain so far. Argues that description and definition of a language have to include aspects of culture, religion, script, politics, and the speakers' own perception of their language and language choice. (SED)

The articles and papers included here all relate to the issue of Chinese characters and the continuing debate over whether it is difficult or easy to learn and to use them. (RM)

Discusses the different varieties of Spanish, the decision of which variety to teach to native speakers, and the concept of a "standard" usage. Basing the decision on sociolinguistic research, this article proposes a spoken and written variety of Spanish to be employed in teaching native speakers in the United States. (Author/JL)