Difference between 母語話者 and ネイティブスピーカー


Wiktionary says that the Japanese for "Native speaker" can be either "母語話者" or
"ネイティブスピーカー". What difference, if any, is there between the two?

Searching the corpus on jisho.org only got one hit for the kanji form, and no
hits for the katakana form.

On lang-8, I saw someone [correct](http://lang-8.com/5255/journals/11524) from
母語話者 to ネイティブスピーカー as the kanji form was not as common.




Conclusion first, neither term is particularly common.

Ironically, however, places like this (SE) are not very good to discuss the
matter. Why not? Because the Japanese-speakers who are on here, myself
included, are already at least bilingual to an extent and, in general, they
would tend to be more interested in foreign languages or "Language" in general
so that they would spend more time discussing language-related subjects than
the average Japanese person. For that reason, someone might jump on me saying
that my first sentence is wrong and we use those terms all the time.

The first time I had ever heard the word 「ネイティブスピーカー」(it is one word in
Japanese) was when I was in high school. That was around the time when some
large-scale English conversation schools had emerged and started advertizing
on TV. 「ネイティブスピーカー」 was their catchword; they hired those people. Good-bye to
the old days of learning English from Japanese teachers.

Funny thing, in restrospect, was that the word was practically never used to
refer to a native speaker of any other language -- particularly one of
Japanese. Just as in child language acquisition, over-generalization and over-
simplification do often occur when a culture imports words from another.

「[母語話者]{ぼごわしゃ}」 is rarely used outside of those who are interested in
linguistics or a particular foreign language, either. I do not think I myself
had ever used it actively before I was in college. It is _almost_ like a
technical term for linguists.

One could say one would hear 「ネイティブスピーカー」 more often than 「母語話者」, but that is
largely because of the advertisement by Eikaiwa schools. The truth, however,
is that neither one is used in the Japanese-speaking world as often and widely
as "native speaker" is used in the English-speaking world. Japan is not an
immigration-based country like many English-speaking countries are. We as a
nation just do not have the custom of asking each other on the street the
question "What's your native language, man?"

Another (perhaps more linguistically convincing) reason that we do not use the
two words in question is that we use the word 「[母国語]{ぼこくご} = one's native
language」 way more often. If you use it, you do not need to use 「ネイティブスピーカー」
or 「母語話者」 because **you can say 「X語を母国語とする人」** instead of saying 「X語の母語話者」 or
「X語のネイティブスピーカー」. It is only a matter of what sounds more natural in either
language.




Conclusion first, neither term is particularly common.

Ironically, however, places like this (SE) are not very good to discuss the
matter. Why not? Because the Japanese-speakers who are on here, myself
included, are already at least bilingual to an extent and, in general, they
would tend to be more interested in foreign languages or "Language" in general
so that they would spend more time discussing language-related subjects than
the average Japanese person. For that reason, someone might jump on me saying
that my first sentence is wrong and we use those terms all the time.

The first time I had ever heard the word 「ネイティブスピーカー」(it is one word in
Japanese) was when I was in high school. That was around the time when some
large-scale English conversation schools had emerged and started advertizing
on TV. 「ネイティブスピーカー」 was their catchword; they hired those people. Good-bye to
the old days of learning English from Japanese teachers.

Funny thing, in restrospect, was that the word was practically never used to
refer to a native speaker of any other language -- particularly one of
Japanese. Just as in child language acquisition, over-generalization and over-
simplification do often occur when a culture imports words from another.

「[母語話者]{ぼごわしゃ}」 is rarely used outside of those who are interested in
linguistics or a particular foreign language, either. I do not think I myself
had ever used it actively before I was in college. It is _almost_ like a
technical term for linguists.

One could say one would hear 「ネイティブスピーカー」 more often than 「母語話者」, but that is
largely because of the advertisement by Eikaiwa schools. The truth, however,
is that neither one is used in the Japanese-speaking world as often and widely
as "native speaker" is used in the English-speaking world. Japan is not an
immigration-based country like many English-speaking countries are. We as a
nation just do not have the custom of asking each other on the street the
question "What's your native language, man?"

Another (perhaps more linguistically convincing) reason that we do not use the
two words in question is that we use the word 「[母国語]{ぼこくご} = one's native
language」 way more often. If you use it, you do not need to use 「ネイティブスピーカー」
or 「母語話者」 because **you can say 「X語を母国語とする人」** instead of saying 「X語の母語話者」 or
「X語のネイティブスピーカー」. It is only a matter of what sounds more natural in either
language.

