An alternative term for this is mother tongue,which again refers to the language of one early childhood environment.is worth adding here that people growing up in bilingual or multilingual environment might learn more than one language from birth ,so have more than one mother tongue A native speaker is therefore someone who has learnt a particular language in this case English since early childhood, in contrast to a non native speaker,who will have learnt it later in life. The significance of the distinction is that people acquire language in a different manner depending on the age at which they learn it learning a second or additional language later in life may,for example result in speaking it with an accent influenced by one native language.