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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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of mother tongue
Image The theme is the conflict between mother tongues and other tongues.
—
Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
Yiddish, the mother tongue of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe for nearly a thousand years, is still spoken by about six hundred thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews mostly concentrated in America, Europe, and Israel.
—Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2025
So to be able to play in my mother tongue would be an amazing experience because there would be no boundaries whatsoever.
—Todd Gilchrist, Variety, 18 Mar. 2025
So to be able to play in my mother tongue would be an amazing experience because there would be no boundaries whatsoever.
—Todd Gilchrist, Variety, 18 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
Yiddish, the mother tongue of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe for nearly a thousand years, is still spoken by about six hundred thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews mostly concentrated in America, Europe, and Israel.
—Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2025
So to be able to play in my mother tongue would be an amazing experience because there would be no boundaries whatsoever.
—Todd Gilchrist, Variety, 18 Mar. 2025
So to be able to play in my mother tongue would be an amazing experience because there would be no boundaries whatsoever.
—Todd Gilchrist, Variety, 18 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongue
Noun
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An artist who lived beyond the boundaries of language and region.—
Naman Ramachandran,
Variety,
14 July 2025
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It was trained on the entire Internet to pull out statistical patterns in the language usage.—
Alex Morris,
Rolling Stone,
14 July 2025
Noun
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During the Cold War, popular culture provided Americans with images of (and a vocabulary for) nuclear war.—
Tom Nichols,
The Atlantic,
10 July 2025
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But at the start of the project, which launched in 2023, their vocabularies differed dramatically.—
Adam Hurly,
Robb Report,
8 July 2025
Noun
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Weeks passed, and the bump remained, despite the tongue’s tendency to heal quickly.—
Tereza Shkurtaj,
People.com,
13 July 2025
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Another alternative is negative pressure devices, which unlike CPAP, suck instead of blow, pulling the tongue and soft tissues up and forward in the mouth.—
Tom Page,
CNN Money,
11 July 2025
Noun
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In it, Italian peasants Matteo and Natale discuss this same cosmic occurrence in the rustic Paduan dialect of the time.—
Andrew Paul,
Popular Science,
3 July 2025
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Around the table, his family speak the local dialect of the Veneto region.—
James Horncastle,
New York Times,
30 June 2025
Noun
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Overall, the impression the car imparts is decidedly futuristic, and the design idiom certainly aligns with other recent luxurious EV concepts, such as those unveiled by Jaguar, Mercedes, and Genesis, as well as production vehicles such as the Tesla Cybertruck.—
Brett Berk,
Robb Report,
8 July 2025
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By the time these terms get into the mainstream, new ones have already appeared, although some (such as to dig or cool) remain staples of the idiom despite wide non-Negro use.—
Benjamin Hale
June 23,
Literary Hub,
23 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 22 Jul. 2025.
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