Glosary

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Language: a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition. In this text language will be treated as mentioned before and not as a body of gestures or any element used or conceived as a mean of communicating because it is related to two specific languages: Spanish and english.

Mother tongue: (also native language, first language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity.

Foreign language: is a language indigenous to another country. It is also a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to. In Colombia for example english is still a foreign language since it is not an oficial language in our country and the frequence of use of this language, although its knowledge in the educative or economic field is at least basic, is not so high in the common social context.

Second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or "mother tongue". Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas. Generally a second language is one of the oficial languages in a country. For example in Africa there are some communities whose first language or mother tongue is the Swahili but the oficial language is English although for them that is their second language.

New language: in this text new language refers to second or foreign language, a language different from the mother tongue.

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In this essay when saying childhood we are refering to children from 0 to 15 years.