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
The film’s Park City premiere would mark the beginning of what would be an incredible 12-month trajectory for the £4M ($5M) film about three hedonistic Irish speakers who form hip-hop group Kneecap and become the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue.
—
Diana Lodderhose, Deadline, 23 Jan. 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Diana Lodderhose, Deadline, 23 Jan. 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for mother tongue
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mother tongue
Noun
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Apart from any constitutional questions, there is also the problem that confessional language issued by the secretary of state in his official capacity distorts the message of Easter.—
Chloe Breyer,
New York Daily News,
21 Apr. 2025
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Pope Francis preached the same gospel in different language.—
John Hope Bryant,
Time,
21 Apr. 2025
Noun
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How to clean jewelry, then, should be an easily answerable and well-attended to question within your fashion vocabulary.—
Anna Cafolla,
Vogue,
25 Apr. 2025
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According to lead researcher Federico Rossano, this marks just the beginning of exploring canine vocabulary, with future studies aiming to delve into more abstract concepts to better understand dog cognition and communication.—
Ross Rosenfeld,
MSNBC Newsweek,
23 Apr. 2025
Noun
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This pair weighs just over one pound and includes heel and tongue loops to make slipping them on and off a breeze.—
Merrell Readman,
Travel + Leisure,
24 Apr. 2025
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So the monkey was sticking his tongue in the trainer’s mouth and then coming over and doing it to me.—
Mikey O'Connell,
HollywoodReporter,
20 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Coogler wanted to ensure that neither of those characters would turn into caricatures, and had Jordan work with a dialect coach to aid in that and even asked twin filmmakers Logan and Noah Miller to consult on the film, helping him on the screenplay too.—
Randy Myers,
Mercury News,
16 Apr. 2025
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Currently, African languages and dialects are underrepresented due to a lack of data and there are often biases in training data, such as facial recognition systems that struggle with darker skin tones.—
Nell Lewis,
CNN Money,
3 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Ultimately, Andrews and his actors find Chekhov by abandoning the paraphernalia of the writer’s universe and groping, in their own idiom, across a perilously empty stage, toward one another.—
Sara Holdren,
Vulture,
4 Apr. 2025
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Which is fitting for a composer who, even when developing a homegrown idiom of his own, was criticized for sounding too European.—
Joshua Barone,
New York Times,
17 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 3 May. 2025.
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