Frequently Used Terms on the biling-fam Mailing List

• ML@H, also mL@H, MLaH, etc.: Minority language at home. Using the minority language, which is to say the language not spoken in the community, at home to create a bilingual environment for the children.
  

• OPOL: One Parent, One Language. Each parent uses his or her native language when speaking to the children, to create a bilingual environment for the children.
  

• m=X, M=Y: The lowercase m means minority language, the uppercase means the majority (community) language. So "m=English, M=Norwegian" means the person in question is part of a family that uses English, living in a Norwegian language environment. It doesn't say whether that person is himself/herself a native English speaker or not, nor does it tell what sort of bilingual pattern the family uses. Many list members use this code in their signatures, and everyone is encouraged to do so.