For various reasons, many people of all ages migrate to countries where their mother tongue is not the official language of that region, leading to multilingualism. In addition to this, English is increasingly becoming a lingua franca across all social networks and various areas of social life, economics, politics and science, among others.

For those of us who multilingualism is an obvious part of ourselves and is constantly present in our daily lives or who have children growing up as multilingual individuals, we are aware that it is not always easy to define which language is our mother tongue. On the other hand, in some cases the second language becomes so strong and so present that it is mastered as well as or better than the mother tongue itself and yet, if we stick to the definition of mother tongue or foreign language, we would not have the right to claim that language as our own.

In the case of multilingualism it is not always possible to clearly define which language meets the requirements of a mother tongue or not. Thanks to her research work in this field, Dr. Carola Koblitz in her research at the University of Vienna became aware of this dilemma and suggests the term inherent language, short iLanguage. Not to be confused with Noam Chomsky’s term I-language.

Inherent (from the Latin inhaerere) refers to an element that is an essential part of a being or an object, that by nature is part of it, that is within it and at the same time defines it. An inherent language is therefore considered, especially in polyglot individuals, to be a language that is part of the individual himself and his identity.

Inherent language is the language or languages in which the individual communicates naturally and reflexively, which is or are part of him/her and his/her identity, regardless of when and how he/she learned it or them.