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
Japanese is the only language that leaves Li’s mouth, but her occasional inner monologues are in her mother tongue, the most crucial example expressing her growing conflict with the very act of writing itself.
—
Josh Slater-Williams, IndieWire, 17 Aug. 2025
Many countries offer visas for language learning, which are student visas specifically designed for people interested in studying the mother tongue of a destination.
—Solo Travel, AFAR Media, 14 Aug. 2025
Advertisement Erdogan lifted the ban on Kurdish language, allowed the Kurds to teach in their mother tongue, and set up radio and television networks to broadcast in Kurdish.
—Ragip Soylu, Time, 18 July 2025
About three-quarters of Singapore’s residents claim Chinese descent and, at the same time, English is its mother tongue and business lingua franca.
—Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 16 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Josh Slater-Williams, IndieWire, 17 Aug. 2025
Many countries offer visas for language learning, which are student visas specifically designed for people interested in studying the mother tongue of a destination.
—Solo Travel, AFAR Media, 14 Aug. 2025
Advertisement Erdogan lifted the ban on Kurdish language, allowed the Kurds to teach in their mother tongue, and set up radio and television networks to broadcast in Kurdish.
—Ragip Soylu, Time, 18 July 2025
About three-quarters of Singapore’s residents claim Chinese descent and, at the same time, English is its mother tongue and business lingua franca.
—Kevin West, Travel + Leisure, 16 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongue
Noun
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In a similar vein, Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist writing during her time working at Google, warned of the dangers of large language models acting as stochastic parrots, which repeat language patterns without understanding, and in doing so replicate the biases embedded in their training data.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
5 Nov. 2025
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The dust-up stems back to the Spanish singer’s recent appearance on the New York Times’ Popcast, where she was asked about singing in about 13 different languages one her new album Lux and the challenges of communicating with a global audience.—
Jon Blistein,
Rolling Stone,
5 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Linguists have argued that its limitless potential is what gives human languages their ability to generate an infinite number of possible sentences out of a finite vocabulary and a finite set of rules.—
Steve Nadis,
Quanta Magazine,
31 Oct. 2025
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Nana was proud of how, in eight months, the boy had gone from not speaking to having a vocabulary closer to developmental guidelines.—
Jayme Fraser,
USA Today,
30 Oct. 2025
Noun
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The band’s famous tongue and lip motif is subtly placed in the top corners of the right lenses and on the temple tip.—
Kaleigh Werner,
Footwear News,
3 Nov. 2025
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The model comically wiggled her tongue back and forth as the artist worked his magic.—
Lauren Huff,
Entertainment Weekly,
1 Nov. 2025
Noun
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But Simeon Silverio, former publisher of the San Diego Asian Journal, said Bayani reflects only one of many Filipino dialects and would fail to represent the country’s diverse cultural groups, each of which has its own word for hero.—
Walker Armstrong,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
22 Oct. 2025
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Even something as simple as the Chicago dialect and John Gacy’s individual odd, idiosyncratic way of speaking.—
Seth Abramovitch,
HollywoodReporter,
21 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Though the idiom of abuse has changed, the critics are as hostile as ever, while their targets react only with curious torpor.—
David Wingrave,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Oct. 2025
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Music unites the interconnecting stories in this saga and expands its passions, with a sumptuous score by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens that taps into a wide range of American styles, idioms and amalgams, even as the second act turns more dissonant.—
Frank Rizzo,
Variety,
17 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
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