mother tongue

[muhth-er tuhng, muhth-er tuhng]

noun

1. the language first learned by a person; native language.

2. mother language.

mother tongue

noun

1. the language first learned by a child

2. a language from which another has evolved

Word History and Origins

Origin of mother tongue¹

1350–1400; Middle English moder tonge

Example Sentences

It made him wonder how his generation had slowly drifted away from their mother tongue, as other languages like English, Urdu and Hindi became more widespread.

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He also dropped English as the primary language for his literature and vowed to only write in his mother tongue, Kikuyu.

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Anxiety about immigrants’ attachment to their mother tongues goes back to colonial days.

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Rapping in the Irish language, a hip-hop trio from Belfast lead a movement to save their mother tongue.

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"Iranians were here. They all fled," one of them says, speaking in his mother tongue, a dialect of Turkish.

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Related Words

• first language