mother tongue

/ˌˈmʌðər ˌtʌŋ/

/ˈmʌðə təŋ/

Other forms: mother tongues

Your mother tongue is the very first language you learned to speak. If you heard your parents speaking Spanish from the time you were born, that's your mother tongue.

Mother tongue, also known as a native language or first language, has a few different meanings. It can refer to the language spoken by a person's ethnic group: "I never learned my mother tongue, so it's hard to communicate with my grandmother." And if you grow up speaking two languages, your mother tongue may be the one you identify with more strongly. Tongue has an Old English root meaning "a people's language."

Definitions of mother tongue

1. noun

   one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next
   synonyms: first language, maternal language

   type of:

   natural language, tongue

   a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language