**Native language attrition, what do you think about it?
But is it truly possible to forget your native language, for example, if you move to another region or country and start speaking a different dialect or language?
A native language, a mother's tongue, it's the first language a person learns and is usually a key part of their identity, allowing them to connect with their family and friends and to embrace their culture and heritage.
Linguists call this phenomenon "native language attrition," or the situation in which you become less competent in your native language over time, perhaps because you now use it less often.
Experts say it's possible to forget your native language in certain circumstances, particularly in the case of young children moving to a different country or region where a different language is spoken.
However, the older you are when you move, the greater the likelihood that you'll keep your native language because you'll have established a much more solid grounding in it, Laura Dominguez, a professor of linguistics at the University of Southampton in the U.K., told Live Science. Therefore, it's improbable that a teenager or an adult would forget whole chunks of language, like how to construct the past tense, she said.
Indeed, research suggests that people are less susceptible to native language attrition after they hit puberty (between the ages of 8 and 13 in girls and 9 and 14 in boys). This is probably because beyond this age, our brains mature and become less malleable and receptive to change.
According to Dominquez, the part of your native language that is most vulnerable to being lost even after short periods is vocabulary, not because you have completely forgotten these native words. Rather, it just takes a bit longer for your brain to retrieve them, Dominguez noted.