Meaning of the word mother tongue

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English mother tonge, modyr tong, equivalent to mother +‎ tongue. Compare Old Norse móðurtunga (“mother tongue”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌð.ə ˌtʌŋ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌð.ɚ ˌtʌŋ/

Noun[edit]

mother tongue (plural mother tongues)

1. The language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one’s native language.

   His mother tongue is a relatively conservative dialect of Aramaic.

   Synonyms: first language, mother language, native language, native tongue, L1

   Antonym: father tongue

   • 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 277:

     One young Tamil teacher had assimilated the sound-system of English so thoroughly to that of his mother-tongue that none of the Chinese and Malay children understood him.

   • 1973, Noel Pitts Gist & Roy Dean Wright, Marginality and Identity, →ISBN:

     Throughout their long history as a minority, Anglo-Indians learned their «father tongue» but were indifferent to their «mother tongue,» an indigenous Indian language.

   • 1993, Janice Rae Williamson, Sounding differences: conversations with seventeen Canadian women writers, →ISBN:

     A father tongue is a foreign language, therefore English is a foreign language not a mother tongue.

   • 2011, Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider, →ISBN, page 144:

     Ramanujan has also argued that many Hindu men have both a mother tongue (the everyday language, such as Tamil, spoken by women downstairs, in the back, in the kitchen) and a father tongue (once Sanskrit, more recently English, the literary lingua franca spoken—or at least discussed—by men in the front rooms).

   • 2012, Máiréad Nic Craith, Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language, →ISBN:

     In the early Middle Ages, ‘mother tongue’ was largely ‘a pejorative term to describe the unlearned language of women and children’ (Haugen 1991: 82). This reflected the low status of women in society and contrasted with Latin, the more prestigious ‘father tongue’ on the continent.

2. The language spoken by one’s ancestors.
3. The language spoken by one’s mother, when it differs from that spoken by one’s father.

   Antonym: father tongue

   • 2006, Yo Jackson, Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology, →ISBN:

     Questions about respondents’ place of birth, their parents’ place of birth, nativity, and language use (called “mother tongue” and “father tongue”) were added to the Census between 1850 and 1960.

   • 2008 —, Xiao-Lei Wang, Growing Up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven, →ISBN, page 58:

     Informed by the experience of other parents who had successfully raised their children with more than one language and our own observations, we knew clearly that Léandre and Dominique’s mother tongue and father tongue would not have a chance without deliberate ‘control’ of their linguistic environment.

4. Informal speech, as opposed to educated language.

   Antonym: father tongue

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods:

     The other is the maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak.

   • 1992, Gail B. Griffin, Calling : essays on teaching in the mother tongue, page 169:

     We learn the father tongue to prove we have outgrown the mother tongue.

   • 2017, Andrew Norris, Becoming Who We Are, →ISBN:

     In each case, we are reborn — a fact that explains Thoreau’s preference here for the father tongue over the mother tongue, as Cavell explains: «A son of man is born of woman; but rebirth, according to our Bible, is the business of the father.»

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• ancestry
• ethnicity

Further reading[edit]

Last Updated:
11 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

The term «mother tongue» refers to a person’s native language — that is, a language learned from birth. Also called a first language, dominant language, home language, and native tongue (although these terms are not necessarily synonymous). 

Contemporary linguists and educators commonly use the term L1 to refer to a first or native language (the mother tongue) and the term L2 to refer to a second language or a foreign language that’s being studied.

Use of the Term ‘Mother Tongue’

«[T]he general usage of the term ‘mother tongue’…denotes not only the language one learns from one’s mother, but also the speaker’s dominant and home language; i.e., not only the first language according to the time of acquisition, but the first with regard to its importance and the speaker’s ability to master its linguistic and communicative aspects. For example, if a language school advertises that all its teachers are native speakers of English, we would most likely complain if we later learned that although the teachers do have some vague childhood memories of the time when they talked to their mothers in English, they, however, grew up in some non-English-speaking country and are fluent in a second language only. Similarly, in translation theory, the claim that one should translate only into one’s mother tongue is in fact a claim that one should only translate into one’s first and dominant language.

«The vagueness of this term has led some researchers to claim…that different connotative meanings of the term ‘mother tongue’ vary according to the intended usage of the word and that differences in understanding the term can have far-reaching and often political consequences.»

(Pokorn, N. Challenging the Traditional Axioms: Translation Into a Non-Mother Tongue. John Benjamins, 2005.)

Culture and Mother Tongue

«It is the language community of the mother tongue, the language spoken in a region, which enables the process of enculturation, the growing of an individual into a particular system of linguistic perception of the world and participation in the centuries-old history of linguistic production.»

(Tulasiewicz, W. and A. Adams, «What Is Mother Tongue?» Teaching the Mother Tongue in a Multilingual Europe. Continuum, 2005.)

«Cultural power can…backfire when the choices of those who embrace Americanness in language, accent, dress, or choice of entertainment stir resentment in those who do not. Every time an Indian adopts an American accent and curbs his ‘mother tongue influence,’ as the call centers label it, hoping to land a job, it seems more deviant, and frustrating, to have only an Indian accent.»(Giridharadas, Anand. «America Sees Little Return From ‘Knockoff Power.'» The New York Times, June 4, 2010.)

Myth and Ideology

«The notion of ‘mother tongue’ is thus a mixture of myth and ideology. The family is not necessarily the place where languages are transmitted, and sometimes we observe breaks in transmission, often translated by a change of language, with children acquiring as first language the one that dominates in the milieu. This phenomenon…concerns all multilingual situations and most of the situations of migration.»
(Calvet, Louis Jean. Towards an Ecology of World Languages. Polity Press, 2006.)

Top 20 Mother Tongues

«The mother tongue of more than three billion people is one of 20: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, German, Wu Chinese, Korean, French, Telugu, Marathi, Turkish, Tamil, Vietnamese, and Urdu. English is the lingua franca of the digital age, and those who use it as a second language may outnumber its native speakers by hundreds of millions. On every continent, people are forsaking their ancestral tongues for the dominant language of their region’s majority. Assimilation confers inarguable benefits, especially as internet use proliferates and rural youth gravitate to cities. But the loss of languages passed down for millennia, along with their unique arts and cosmologies, may have consequences that won’t be understood until it is too late to reverse them.»
(Thurman, Judith. «A Loss for Words.» The New Yorker, March 30, 2015.)

A Lighter Side of the Mother Tongue

«Gib’s friend: Forget her, I hear she only likes intellectuals.
Gib: So? I’m intellectual and stuff.
Gib’s friend: You’re flunking English. That’s your mother tongue and stuff.»
(The Sure Thing, 1985)

Mother tongue and Native language have similar, meanings and are often actually interchangeable, however there is a subtle difference.

Native language refers to the language of the area the person grows up in. For example, growing up in the United States, your native language would be English. It’s the language used every day everywhere you go by the vast majority of the people there.

Mother tongue refers to the language of the family you grew up in. The language your parents spoke in the house, or to each other out-and-about if applicable. Often, parents will use the same language as that of the region (parents in the U.S. speaking English) however it can differ. Take for example a family of immigrants from Mexico to the United States. In their house and with family/friends they may use Spanish. But at school, restaurants, stores, etc they would use English. In this case, the native language is English and the mother tongue is Spanish.

Typically, the two will refer to the same language, in which case they are interchangeable; however, in some cases they may differ.

You may have heard the phrase “mother tongue” and wondered what in the world it even means.

It is an ambiguous phrase that is often meshed with the terms like “native language” or “first language”. 

However, they aren’t exactly the same.

Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about the mother tongue including: the mother tongue meaning and definition; if you can you have more than one mother tongue; how mother tongue differs from your first language, and much more.

Mother Tongue Meaning & Definition

The mother tongue (or mother language) has several definitions. Here are the top four mother tongue meanings:

The first and most common mother tongue meaning is: the language that a child’s mother and father speak. This is the definition we will explore in-depth in this post.

Other mother tongue definitiions include:

• The language a child grew up speaking.
• The language of a particular area or ethnic group.
• The language from which other languages are formed.

Is the mother tongue the same as the first language?

Many sources do refer to mother tongue and native language, or first language, synonymously.

However, there are some problems with that grouping.

The mother tongue and first language are not always the same, if mother tongue is used to describe either the mother or father’s native language.

The first language is the language that a child learns to speak first in life.

Therefore, depending on exposure, the mother tongue and the first language may or may not be the same.

On some occasions, even if parents speak the mother tongue at home, children may begin using the dominant community language first if they are exposed to it more.

Parents may also have differing mother tongues, meaning the child is exposed to multiple languages at once.

Is the mother tongue a dialect?

The mother tongue can be a dialect, depending on the language natively spoken by the mother and father.

However, the term mother tongue is not used to define one specific language.

Can a person have more than one mother tongue?

Yes, people can have more than one mother tongue.

If both parents speak different languages (OPOL), as mentioned above, a bilingual child would have two mother tongues.

However, this is not the case with all bilinguals. If both parents spoke English at home and a child learned French at school, (using MLAH) that bilingual child would still only have one mother tongue.

However, if a child in the same school had a father who spoke English and a mother who spoke French, this child would have two mother tongues.

How is the mother tongue acquired?

The mother tongue is acquired through a natural process that begins while the child is in the womb.

After birth, children are surrounded by language, generally, their mother tongue, being spoken around them.

Over time, through listening and observation, they learn to replicate the sounds and words they’ve heard around them.

Why is your mother tongue important?

Your mother tongue is important because it can help you stay connected to where your mother or father is originally from.

It also gives insight into the language environment and culture that your mother or father grew up in.

The mother tongue also provides you with a cultural context.

Language teaches you a certain people group’s views toward respect, elders, and community in the ways you address one another. This structure forms, in part, your views of the world and others.

In addition, certain words simply do not exist in other languages. This can teach you cultural nuances you may miss if you did not speak your mother tongue.

Can you forget your mother tongue?

It is possible to forget your mother tongue. If the mother tongue is only spoken by parents or extended family, people may begin to forget their mother tongue due to lack of use.

This, unfortunately, is how many languages begin to die out. The community language overtakes the home language.

This often occurs when children begin attending school and the majority of their day is spent in the community language instead of the mother tongue.

It can also occur if a person moves away from their community and no longer has speakers of their home language to communicate with. For example when a child is adopted.

How does your mother tongue influence learning and language acquisition?

Your mother tongue influences learning and language acquisition because it teaches you a basic linguistic structure, or how languages work.

This linguistic base forms the assumptions your brain makes about language and the sounds you are most attuned to.

You learn how to guess when one word begins and another ends through intonation and to judge the mood of a speaker by their tone.

When trying to learn a new language, you will attempt to apply the rules you already know from your first language.

If the two languages have similar roots, it will be much easier for you to acquire the second language than if you had to learn an entirely new structure.

Why do people find it difficult to learn their mother tongue?

People may have difficulty learning their mother tongue because they do not use it often enough or they are not exposed to it frequently.

Research has shown that, generally, children need around 30% of their language input to be in the mother tongue to acquire fluency.

Although there are many cases where children have become fluent without this much exposure due to the quality of their interactions, consistent exposure is key to learning a new language.

Without enough input, a child will struggle to obtain fluency in their mother tongue.

Why is it called the mother tongue?

The mother tongue is referred to as such because it is the language of your primary caregiver, which traditionally was the mother.

However, this has sparked recent debate about whether the term father tongue should be used as well to give equal importance to the father’s language.

Learning your mother tongue is often a very important part of understanding and preserving your cultural heritage.

If your mother tongue isn’t the same language you grew up speaking in school or at home, consider taking the time to learn your mother tongue.

It just may help you more fully understand and appreciate who you are and where you come from.

More definitions:

• What is bilingual?
• What is monolingual?
• What is a polyglot?
• What is multicultural?

Are you raising a bilingual child? Subscribe for related articles. Follow Bilingual KidSpot on Facebook and join our private discussion group.

Mother tongue is a common expression that is also often presented as popular language , mother tongue , native language or first language . It defines, as is clear from the meaning of the two words that form it, to the first language that an individual manages to dominate or, in other words, to the language spoken in a given nation with respect to its natives. Mother tongue definition

Ultimately, the mother tongue is the one that is best known and understood, in terms of the subjective assessment that the person carries out with respect to the languages ​​they speak. It is also about that language that is acquired naturally through interaction with the immediate environment, without > pedagogical interventions and without a consciously developed linguistic reflection .

In general, the mother tongue is known and incorporated from the family. The ability in the mother tongue is essential for subsequent learning as it forms the basis of thinking. On the other hand, a partial mastery of the mother tongue hinders the process of assimilation of other languages.

According to the theories of Noam Chomsky and other linguists, the mother tongue can be learned until approximately twelve years of age. Once this period is over, the linguistic abilities of each person are different and every language incorporated becomes a second language.

After the apparent simplicity of the concept of the mother tongue lies a cluster of factors that sometimes contradict each other, so the term mother tongue is not always univocal. The complexity of the term is evident if one compares what some users of the language, including specialists, understand by mother tongue; Here are some criteria considered in the characterization of the concept:

1. the mother‘s own language;
2. the usual language within the family, transmitted from generation to generation;
3. the first language that one learns, the language in which one begins to know the world ;
4. the language in which one thinks, the one that knows best and in which one communicates with greater spontaneity and fluency and with less effort, and, for all this, the language that one prefers to use both in situations of maximum intellectual complexity and in those others of maximum privacy;
5. the language that one feels as one’s own, as part of their individual identity and their own community.

What is the impact of a mother tongue?

The mother tongue also plays a key role in building your own identity. Even being bilingual, some ways of describing the world depend largely on the language they learned in the first place, since the first experiments were carried out in that language: for example, eggs have an orange color in Spanish, yellow in French and red in Italian (“rosso dell’uvo”). Cultural differences, beyond color, are also noticeable in historical or religious references, for example, “lónɡ mǎ jīnɡ shen” (having the energy of the dragon and the horse, which means keeping a mind alive despite age) It has a meaning for a Chinese who knows mythology about the animals of the zodiac, but incomprehensible to the rest.

Can you “lose” the mother tongue?

Sometimes, for cultural or practical reasons, some children cease to learn or use their mother tongue: in fact, this is not because some concepts were learned in a language that was recorded in the student’s memory, since the language it must be used, even minimally, to be preserved. It can also happen that the children of immigrants are pushed by their parents or by the society in which they grow up not to use their mother tongue, only their host language and completely lose the use of this language except for a few words. The problem then becomes that by losing the use of this language, they can lose contact with their culture as a whole and find themselves lost in a culture of origin that they do not truly know and in which they cannot interact.

Can we have two mother tongues?

In principle yes. Although experts are divided on the subject and some believe that one language is still dominant over the others, the assumption of learning two languages ​​at the same time would be possible for the children of bilingual couples. It is interesting to note that in general, during the first years, they do not learn to name things around them in both languages, but to know the words and phrases in one or another language. Sometimes, it can be paradoxical that they have difficulties in the language subject. However, this gap begins to close around the age of 4-5 years and, subsequently, these children have a great advantage over their peers. Mother tongue definition

Can you really be bilingual without having been taught in two languages?

Again, the debate is shared, especially with regard to the definition of “bilingual.” As the mother tongue truly influences the way we view the world, some believe that an individual can never have this difference in perception. The person will have learned all the grammar and vocabulary they want, but cannot use it in the same way or in the same circumstances as someone who has “lived” the language from an early learning.

Some factors, however, could compensate for the lack, for example, reside in a language-speaking country, have a partner who speaks a different language or work in an environment that uses another language. All these situations allow to use language in a context and with a purpose beyond the purely utilitarian and allow to understand the cultural context of that language. Mother tongue definition

Not being a bilingual student is not a fatality. Not only is it possible to master a foreign language, but people who learn an adult language are often better in grammar and spelling (since they learn systematically), compared to those who have learned the language by mimicry or by imitation. Conducting an immersion program in a foreign country where it is possible to use the language in everyday situations and discover the culture at the same time as the language is an enriching experience from an academic, professional and personal point of view. The OISE centers offer tailored programs abroad where total immersion in culture and results are guaranteed.

Educalingo cookies are used to personalize ads and get web traffic statistics. We also share information about the use of the site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.

Download the app
educalingo

When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.

Emmanuel Jal

PRONUNCIATION OF MOTHER TONGUE

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF MOTHER TONGUE

Mother tongue is a noun.

WHAT DOES MOTHER TONGUE MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Definition of mother tongue in the English dictionary

The definition of mother tongue in the dictionary is the language first learned by a child. Other definition of mother tongue is a language from which another has evolved.

TRANSLATION OF MOTHER TONGUE

Find out the translation of mother tongue to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «MOTHER TONGUE»

The term «mother tongue» is quite widely used and occupies the 41.448 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.

Principal search tendencies and common uses of mother tongue

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «MOTHER TONGUE» OVER TIME

10 QUOTES WITH «MOTHER TONGUE»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word mother tongue.

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «MOTHER TONGUE»

Discover the use of mother tongue in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to mother tongue and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «MOTHER TONGUE»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term mother tongue is used in the context of the following news items.

REFERENCE

« EDUCALINGO. Mother tongue [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/mother-tongue>. Apr 2023 ».

Словосочетания

Автоматический перевод

родной язык, материнский язык, родная речь, родной

Перевод по словам

mother  — мать, мама, матушка, мамаша, начало, источник, быть матерью, родить, лелеять, охранять
tongue  — язык, шпунт, язычок, шип, болтать, лизать, языковый