People who forgot some or all of their native language
Each of these celebrities admittedly forgot some or all of his or her first language. Linguists call it "first language attrition". Even if you don’t forget all of your first language, you can lose a lot of it over time. This happens to some people when they move to a new country. Most commonly, children under ten (sometimes older) can forget their native language almost completely if they are immersed in a new one. It is as if the brain says, "Oh, I need to lose the language I’ve been speaking for ten years because, in order to survive, I need this new one". Being born into one linguistic milieu doesn't guarantee continued fluency. For example, Natalie Portman speaks fluent Hebrew not just because she lived in Israel as a young child but because she continued to study the language after moving to the United States.
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- English actress Francesca Annis, who has enjoyed a career spanning seven decades in movies, television and the theater, was born in London six days after V-E Day, on May 14, 1945. Her father, Lester, was English, but her mother, Mariquita (aka Mara Purcell), was of Brazilian-French heritage. From the time she was a year old to the age of seven, the family lived in Brazil. The young Francesca spoke Portuguese, that country's language, as a child. Educated at a convent school, she dreamed of becoming a nun but trained as a ballet dancer before studying drama at the Corona Theatre School. She began acting in bit parts in the 1950s, working her way up to better roles. In addition to appearing on the big and little screens, she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Her most famous roles are as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's version of Macbeth (1971), in which she had a notorious nude sleepwalking scene, and as Kyle MacLachlan (Paul Atreides)' mother Lady Jessica in David Lynch's adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (1984). A highly respected performer, in 1979, she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress, playing Lily Langtry in the miniseries Lillie (1978). She appeared with James Warwick as husband and wife sleuths Tommy and Tuppence Beresford in the television series Partners in Crime (1983). She also appeared as Jacqueline Kennedy in the television movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988).The actress spoke Brazilian Portuguese until she was seven when she moved with her parents to England. Eventually, she could no longer speak a word of Portuguese. - At the age of ten he became an orphan. His father was an early member of the Aydar Theosophical Society, which took over the education of his son and chose him as a world teacher and messiah. With the early loss of his mother in 1909, the then head of the Theosophical Society, Dr. Besant, the upbringing of the young Krishnamurti, who was adopted by him. According to the theosophists, a new Messiah was announced, which they saw in him. In preparation for his task as a world teacher, they set up the organization "Star of the East" in 1911, which operated worldwide and at whose head Jiddu Krishnamurti was placed. He represented the basic theosophical ideas of the universal brotherhood, according to which everyone and everything is filled with a cosmic consciousness and participates in it as a kin. Numerous currents such as Buddhism, Tantrism as well as yoga and guru teachings found their way into theosophical thought and were alternately decisive for the dogmatic foundation of the organization.
From 1922 onward, Jiddu Krishnamurti began to distance himself from the Theosophical Society and its spiritual teachings because he saw himself as too much absorbed - especially ideologically. This process lasted until August 3, 1929, when he finally separated from her. Since then, he has been less and less perceived by the public as a religious preacher. His audience experienced a worldly-minded philanthropist and admonisher who, with statements of values and existence, fundamentally called for people's intellectual freedom and, with one of his many key messages: "Truth is a country without predetermined paths," also warned against his own ideas as spiritual appropriation : Man may achieve his freedom through concentrated attention on his own mind and through knowledge of the nature of that mind. Self-knowledge and the knowledge of determining factors of a religious, ideological or political nature were his constant concerns in his work - with the goal of freedom and harmony between humans and nature.
In this context, Jiddu Krishnamurti asked questions about the ego and about thinking in its limitations; he recognized ideals as projections of thinking that distract from the actual problems and conflicts. Until the end of the 1960s, the thinker, without teaching of his own, was busy traveling and writing, which made him both popular and popular with the public. He wrote numerous speeches, newsletters, notebooks, diaries, notes, letters and books and traveled to Europe, Asia and the American continent, among other places. He not only founded numerous schools there, but also gained well-known personalities as friends such as the Irish playwright Bernard Shaw and the Indian politician Jawaharlal Nehru. His more than 60 publications, which have been translated into numerous languages, include titles such as "Perfect Freedom - The Krishnamurti Book", "On Love, The Truth is a Pathless Country" and "Education for the Art of Living - Letters to His Schools".As a child, the influential writer and speaker spoke Telugu, a language of the Indian subcontinent. When he was adopted by members of the Theosophical Society at age 14, he learned to speak English in six months. Later, he also learned to speak French fluently. But he forgot Telugu, only remembering the word “ama”, which means “mother”. - Regilio Tuur was born on 12 August 1967 in Paramaribo, Suriname.The former Olympic boxer was raised in the former Dutch colony of Suriname and in the Netherlands, but since moving to New York, USA in 1988, he has lost the ability to speak Dutch fluently, although he is often able to understand it. His worst beating was from ignorant people on social media who could not understand how someone could forget their native language.
- Steffi Graf is a German professional tennis player.
She was ranked world No. 1 and won 22 Grand Slam singles titles. In 1988, she became the only tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. She is the only tennis player to have won each Grand Slam tournament at least four times.
Graf was ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks - the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number-one ranking. She won 107 singles titles.
Graf's athletic ability and aggressive game played from the baseline have been credited with developing the modern style of play that has come to dominate today's game. Notable features of Graf's game were her versatility across all playing surfaces, footwork and powerful forehand drive. She won six French Open singles titles, seven Wimbledon singles titles, four Australian Open titles, and five U.S. Open singles titles. Graf's Grand Slam was achieved on grass, clay, and hard court while the previous five Grand Slams were decided on only grass and clay. Graf reached thirteen consecutive major singles finals, from the 1987 French Open through to the 1990 French Open, winning nine of them. She won 5 consecutive major singles tournaments (1988 Australian Open to 1989 Australian Open). She reached a total of 31 major singles finals.Since moving to the United States in 2000, the tennis star soon lost some of her native German, for example, once forgetting the word "überwältigt" during a speech in Germany and having to use its English equivalent "overwhelmed".