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
Miranda is a rare instance of Björk writing her lyrics entirely in Icelandic, and her melodies sound lovely and in some ways more natural in her mother tongue.
—
Al Shipley, SPIN, 22 Jan. 2025
But most also want their children to first gain a strong grounding in their mother tongue.
—Chris Buckley, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025
Childhood friends in Belfast meet and start making sick beats with their music teacher, and the trio's use of the country's mother tongue fuels a youth movement against the establishment.
—Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 24 Dec. 2024
The results were weighted according to age, gender, mother tongue, region, education and presence of children in the household.
—Dan Perry, Newsweek, 18 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Al Shipley, SPIN, 22 Jan. 2025
But most also want their children to first gain a strong grounding in their mother tongue.
—Chris Buckley, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025
Childhood friends in Belfast meet and start making sick beats with their music teacher, and the trio's use of the country's mother tongue fuels a youth movement against the establishment.
—Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 24 Dec. 2024
The results were weighted according to age, gender, mother tongue, region, education and presence of children in the household.
—Dan Perry, Newsweek, 18 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongue
Noun
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Users will be able to create their AI Twin in a few minutes by taking a selfie and talking for a few minutes introducing themselves and an AI Twin of them is created that can talk, chat, and sound just like them and can talk in 32 languages.—
Elizabeth Stanton,
FOXNews.com,
28 Mar. 2025
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Advanced tools like optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing (NLP) extract key data— for example, sender details, dates, and document types — instantly. 2.—
Chris Gallagher,
USA Today,
28 Mar. 2025
Noun
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English speakers also adapted vocabulary from the Vikings.—
Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi,
Discover Magazine,
11 Mar. 2025
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One minor but effective way to sound more assertive is to nix hedging language from your vocabulary, Barbara Shabazz, PsyD, clinical psychologist based in Virginia Beach, tells SELF.—
Jenna Ryu,
SELF,
5 Mar. 2025
Noun
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But even the best-intending critics should hold their tongues while a larger effort unfolds.—
Paul Du Quenoy,
MSNBC Newsweek,
28 Mar. 2025
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Goode almost always worked in a series — for instance, making multiple sculptures of staircases whose orderly repetition of rectilinear treads and risers put a domestic tongue firmly in the industrial cheek of Minimalist art’s crisp geometry.—
Christopher Knight,
Los Angeles Times,
27 Mar. 2025
Noun
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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
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While Zubac is from Croatia and Bogdanovic is Serbian, their native Balkan language is the same but spoken with different dialects.—
Janis Carr,
Orange County Register,
20 Mar. 2025
Noun
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There is a French idiom that says when something is so easy, it can be done with ‘les doigts dans le nez’ — the fingers in the nose.—
Liam Tharme,
The Athletic,
23 Jan. 2025
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While often used sarcastically to mock true believers, the idiom reflects Italy’s enduring ambiguity toward Fascism, even 80 years after its fall.—
Mattia Ferraresi,
airmail.news,
1 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025.
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