mother tongue

noun

1
: one's native language
2
: a language from which another language derives

Examples of mother tongue in a Sentence

although the anthropologist could speak the local language fairly well, she was always glad to find someone who shared her mother tongue
Recent Examples on the Web What sets the tightly knit community, whose mother tongue is Arabic, apart from other minority communities within Israel’s borders is their fierce national pride. Lianne Kolirin, CNN, 21 Feb. 2024 Their wild journey features drugs, anti-British rap tunes and feuding with extremist groups and the cops, though the trio's use of the country's mother tongue fuels a youth movement against the establishment trying to tamp down this indigenous language. Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2024 Sojourner Truth wasn’t Southern, and English wasn’t even her mother tongue. Cynthia Greenlee, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Feb. 2024 This is the real life story of how this anarchic Belfast trio became the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue. Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Feb. 2024 Conceived amid the bombs in Kabul, I was born and raised until age 7 in Fremont, and taught that my mother tongue, Farsi, was a foreign language. Various Staff Writers, Special Correspondents, and Special Contributors, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Dec. 2023 My mother tongue is not my dad’s, and my grandma and I communicate on the shaky ground of Spanglish, neither of us having ever arrived at the comfort of fluency. Anna Luisa Rodriguez, Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2023 This anarchic Belfast trio becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save the mother tongue. Peter Debruge, Variety, 6 Dec. 2023 Russian had always been Kyiv native Olena Bondarenko’s mother tongue. Lydia Tomkiw, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mother tongue.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of mother tongue was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near mother tongue

Cite this Entry

“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mother%20tongue. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

mother tongue

noun
1
: one's native language
2
: a language from which another language develops
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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