as in language
the stock of words, pronunciation, and grammar used by a people as their basic means of communication
although the anthropologist could speak the local language fairly well, she was always glad to find someone who shared her mother tongue
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Recent Examples of mother tongue
How could someone who’d left China in fifth grade have kept up her mother tongue so well?
—
Shuang Xuetao, The New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2024
The show opened with songs in Mukherjee’s mother tongue Bengali, that were composed, written and sung by famous Bengali musicians including Nobel Prize awardee Rabindranath Tagore.
—Riddhi Doshi, CNN, 28 Jan. 2025
The theme is the conflict between mother tongues and other tongues.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
Czesław Miłosz found in himself the heart to give up the terrain of his mother tongue, and to keep writing poems in Polish.
—Robert Pinsky, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Shuang Xuetao, The New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2024
The show opened with songs in Mukherjee’s mother tongue Bengali, that were composed, written and sung by famous Bengali musicians including Nobel Prize awardee Rabindranath Tagore.
—Riddhi Doshi, CNN, 28 Jan. 2025
The theme is the conflict between mother tongues and other tongues.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
Czesław Miłosz found in himself the heart to give up the terrain of his mother tongue, and to keep writing poems in Polish.
—Robert Pinsky, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongue
Noun
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Apart from any constitutional questions, there is also the problem that confessional language issued by the secretary of state in his official capacity distorts the message of Easter.—
Chloe Breyer,
New York Daily News,
21 Apr. 2025
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Pope Francis preached the same gospel in different language.—
John Hope Bryant,
Time,
21 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The examples are countless, and, behind the expansion of vocabulary, there is always a foundation that is likely forgotten or plainly unknown by people who adopt it via popular culture.—
Lawrence Burney,
Pitchfork,
18 Apr. 2025
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For those of us old enough to remember Martin (or caught up through reruns), that phrase is etched into our pop culture vocabulary.—
Angel Diaz,
Billboard,
15 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Princess Charlotte sticking her tongue out during a royal engagement and sending Princess Kate into a fit of giggles went newly viral on TikTok.—
Gordon G. Chang,
MSNBC Newsweek,
8 Apr. 2025
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But more often than not, the sharp tongue and the sly eye roll serve a deeper purpose: survival.—
Shelby Stewart,
Essence,
8 Apr. 2025
Noun
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To prepare, Reid worked with a dialect coach and learned the specific physicality associated with Natalia's condition.—
Lee Habeeb,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Apr. 2025
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The interview was conducted in a mixture of English and Low German, a dialect widely spoken within the Christian Mennonite community.—
Thomas G. Moukawsher,
Newsweek,
22 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Ultimately, Andrews and his actors find Chekhov by abandoning the paraphernalia of the writer’s universe and groping, in their own idiom, across a perilously empty stage, toward one another.—
Sara Holdren,
Vulture,
4 Apr. 2025
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Which is fitting for a composer who, even when developing a homegrown idiom of his own, was criticized for sounding too European.—
Joshua Barone,
New York Times,
17 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 24 Apr. 2025.
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