mother tongue
UK/ˈmʌð.ə ˌtʌŋ//ˈmʌð.ɚ ˌtʌŋ/
mother tongue noun: the language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one's native language.
Noun
mother tongue (plural mother tongues)
- 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.
- Our conversation was entirely in Malay, as that is the official language here, and in fact the mother-tongue and only language of the controlleur, who is a native-born half-breed.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 384
- Synonyms:
- first language, mother language, native language, native tongue, L1
- Antonyms:
- father tongue
- The language spoken by one’s ancestors.
- The language spoken by one's mother, when it differs from that spoken by one's father.
- 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 1960.2006, Yo Jackson, Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology, →ISBN
- 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...2008 -, Xiao-Lei Wang, Growing Up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven, →ISBN, page 58
- Antonyms:
- father tongue
- Informal speech, as opposed to educated language.
- 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.1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods
- We learn the father tongue to prove we have outgrown the mother tongue.1992, Gail B. Griffin, Calling : essays on teaching in the mother tongue, page 169
- Antonyms:
- father tongue
mother tongue meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
mother tongue in Hindi
- one's native tongue
- मातृभाषा mātŕbhāṣā, मादरी ज़बान mādrī zabān
mother tongue in Tamil
- one's native tongue
- தாய்மொழி tāymoḻi, தாய் மொழி tāy moḻi
mother tongue in Marathi
- one's native tongue
- मातृभाषा mātŕbhāṣā, मायबोली māybolī
mother tongue in Urdu
- one's native tongue
- مادری زبان mādrī zubān
More languagesFewer languages
- mother tongue in Bengali
- মাতৃভাষা matribhaśa
- mother tongue in Telugu
- దేశభాష dēśabhāṣa, మాతృ భాష mātr̥ bhāṣa
- mother tongue in Malayalam
- തായ്മൊഴി tāymoḻi
- mother tongue in Kannada
- ಮಾತೃಭಾಷೆ mātṛbhāṣe
- mother tongue in Punjabi
- ਮਾਂ ਬੋਲੀ mā̃ bolī, ماں بولِی māṉ bolī, مات بولِی māt bolī
- mother tongue in Gujarati
- માતૃભાષા mātŕbhāṣā
- mother tongue in Odia
- ମାତୃଭାଷା Mātṛubhāshā
- mother tongue in Sinhala
- මවු බස mawu basa
- mother tongue in Nepali
- मातृभाषा mātr̥bhāṣā
- mother tongue in Pashto
- مورنۍ ژبه moranǝy žǝba
- mother tongue in Tagalog
- inang-wika, katutubong wika, inang wika
- mother tongue in Arabic
- لُغَة أُمّ luḡat ʔumm, لُغَة قَوْمِيَّة luḡa qawmiyya, لُغَة أُولَى luḡa ʔūlā
- mother tongue in Malay
- bahasa ibunda
- mother tongue in Indonesian
- bahasa ibu
- mother tongue in Persian
- زبان مادری zabân-e mâdari
- mother tongue in Thai
- ภาษาแม่ paa-sǎa-mɛ̂ɛ
- mother tongue in Vietnamese
- tiếng mẹ đẻ, ngôn ngữ mẹ đẻ, ngôn ngữ đầu tiên
- mother tongue in Myanmar
- မိခင်ဘာသာစကား mi.hkangbhasaca.ka:, အမိဘာသာစကား a.mi.bhasaca.ka:
- Kashmiri
- ماجہِ زؠو māji zyav
Examples of mother tongue in a sentence
- Throughout their long history as a minority, Anglo-Indians learned their "father tongue" but were indifferent to their "mother tongue," an indigenous Indian language.1973, Noel Pitts Gist, Roy Dean Wright, Marginality and Identity, →ISBN:
- A father tongue is a foreign language, therefore English is a foreign language not a mother tongue.1993, Janice Rae Williamson, Sounding differences: conversations with seventeen Canadian women writers, →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).2012, Máiréad Nic Craith, Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language, →ISBN:
Synonyms of mother tongue
Antonyms
Forms of mother tongue
| plural | mother tongues |
|---|
Origin of mother tongue
From Middle English mother tonge, modyr tong, equivalent to mother + tongue. Compare Old Norse móðurtunga (“mother tongue”).
Questions about mother tongue
- What does mother tongue mean?
- Mother tongue means the language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one's native language.
- What is mother tongue in Hindi?
- Mother tongue in Hindi is मातृभाषा (mātŕbhāṣā), मादरी ज़बान (mādrī zabān). See Mother tongue meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use mother tongue in a sentence?
- Throughout their long history as a minority, Anglo-Indians learned their "father tongue" but were indifferent to their "mother tongue," an indigenous Indian language.
- What part of speech is mother tongue?
- Mother tongue is a noun.
- How do you pronounce mother tongue?
- Mother tongue is pronounced /ˈmʌð.ə ˌtʌŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of mother tongue?
- The plural of mother tongue is mother tongues.
Words near mother tongue in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mother tongue (page history and authors); തായ്മൊഴി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); मातृभाषा (Nepali) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-mother tongue.wav.
Cite this entry: “mother tongue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mother_tongue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.