as in vocabularies
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
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongues
Noun
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For decades, BCIs were limited to toy demos and small vocabularies.—
Jason Snyder,
Forbes.com,
31 Aug. 2025 -
This indicates that dogs focus on broad sound patterns rather than the finer phonetic details humans rely on, which may explain why their vocabularies remain relatively small.—
Lucy Notarantonio,
MSNBC Newsweek,
20 Aug. 2025
Noun
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As possessed people speak in foreign tongues and violence rises, Ahmed fears regaining memory, while the disciple fears his master’s decline may unleash an ancient evil.—
Zac Ntim,
Deadline,
28 Aug. 2025
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His nephew is old enough to speak both tongues, but Ammon's nieces are still too young.—
Zoey Lyttle,
People.com,
26 Aug. 2025
Noun
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The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.—
Chris Spargo,
PEOPLE,
5 Sep. 2025
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Workshops encouraged participants to write in the languages most natural to them, often leading to hybrid forms that reflected Miami’s cultural mix.—
Jonel Juste,
Miami Herald,
4 Sep. 2025
Noun
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These systems can interpret regional slang, idioms and context-specific expressions, hence minimizing both over-censorship and under-enforcement.—
Anees Ali Khan,
Forbes.com,
8 Aug. 2025
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Allusions to myths, fables, and riffs on common idioms abound, many of them evocative and quite funny.—
Lora Kelley,
New Yorker,
7 Aug. 2025
Noun
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The Tibetan diaspora encompasses people from three historical regions and five major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, each of which has its own subcultures, dialects, and histories.—
Tenzin Dorjee,
Foreign Affairs,
1 Sep. 2025
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Google says this feature supports more than 70 languages—fewer than the 251 total, including regional and national dialects, that this app supports after a series of linguistic expansions.—
Rob Pegoraro,
PC Magazine,
26 Aug. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Mother tongues.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongues. Accessed 6 Sep. 2025.
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