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Examples of mother tongue in a Sentence
although the anthropologist could speak the local language fairly well, she was always glad to find someone who shared her mother tongue
Recent Examples on the Web
Help with that one comes from Emery and his coaching staff, who have been asked by Onana to address him in their mother tongue.
—Jacob Tanswell, The Athletic, 20 Aug. 2024
This suggested, startlingly, that birds could learn a literal mother tongue while still in ovo.
—Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2024
The font on the album cover is a play on the Geʽez script used in Amharic, her mother tongue.
—Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 20 Sep. 2024
Who among us doesn’t feel — either occasionally or always — like social codes are a chaotic second language that other people were born speaking like a mother tongue?
—David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 10 Sep. 2024
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Word History
First Known Use
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Time Traveler
The first known use of mother tongue was
in the 14th century
Dictionary Entries Near mother tongue
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mother%20tongue. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
Kids Definition
mother tongue
noun1
: one's native language
2
: a language from which another language develops
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