Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One's native language.
- n. A parent language.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One's native language.
- n. A tongue or language to which other languages owe their origin.
Wiktionary
- n. The language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one's native language.
- n. The language spoken by one’s ancestors.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. The language of one's native land; native tongue.
WordNet 3.0
- n. one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next
Examples
“Before us squats her super grass a bearded Afro-Arab merchant seaman who for the price of what I'm earning in a year will dish the dirt on a ring of corrupt customs officers and policemen operating in Liverpool's dock land He speaks only meagre English, his mother tongue being a classical Tanzanian-flavoured Swahili.”
“Succeeding governments in both Italy and Spain have turned a blind eye, according to temperament or expedience, and to this day San Juan remains — on Italian territory in Italian seas — Spanish in thought and flavour; still using in highly bastardized form its founder’s mother tongue and strictly upholding and maintaining his deplorable standards.”
“In the ninth century, through the efforts of Sts. Cyril and Methodius and their disciples, the Moravians and the Bulgarians were converted to Christianity, and as the missionaries were Byzantines they introduced their own rite, but translated the Liturgy into Slav, the mother tongue of those nations.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mother tongue’.
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LIBE - grounds for discrimination
sex, nationality, racial origin, origin of nationa..., color, mother tongue, disability, medical condition, religious or ideo..., political or othe..., family status, motherhood and 21 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
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favourite phrases
light pollution, poop deck, inclement weather, pole star, wax poetic, grandfather clock, tea cozy, lunar maria, shotgun wedding, gathering my wits..., pyrrhic victory, scorched earth and 108 more...
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INTERP - VOCABULARY
The vocabulary of conference interpreting. I commend this list to those who want to know more about the profession and to those who wish to organize their knowledge about the profession. To aspirin...
retour language, A-language, B-language, C-language, relay language, take sy on relay, language booth, booth meeting, mic, mike, mission, freelance interpr... and 2086 more...
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linguistics
holophrasis, polyglot, interrobang, echolalia, glossolalia, alogia, malapropism, sesquipedalian, hapax legomenon, portmanteau, tautology, epigram and 79 more...
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Speaking in tongues
Tongue words and phrases.
tongue-tied, tongue-lashing, tongue-twister, tongue-in-cheek, forked tongue, tongue-chain, speaking in tongues, gift of tongues, on the tip of one..., tongue-work, tongue-fence, tongue bone and 72 more...
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A Mother of a List
Figurative 'mother' expressions.
mother-water, mother-liquor, mother-lye, mother-of-vinegar, mother-pearl, mother-of-pearl, mother-queen, motherboard, mothership, motherland, motherlode, motherload and 29 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mother tongue.
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