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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What sets the tightly knit community, whose mother tongue is Arabic, apart from other minority communities within Israel’s borders is their fierce national pride.
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Lianne Kolirin, CNN, 21 Feb. 2024
Their wild journey features drugs, anti-British rap tunes and feuding with extremist groups and the cops, though the trio's use of the country's mother tongue fuels a youth movement against the establishment trying to tamp down this indigenous language.
—Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2024
Sojourner Truth wasn’t Southern, and English wasn’t even her mother tongue.
—Cynthia Greenlee, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Feb. 2024
This is the real life story of how this anarchic Belfast trio became the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue.
—Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for mother tongue 
Lianne Kolirin, CNN, 21 Feb. 2024
Their wild journey features drugs, anti-British rap tunes and feuding with extremist groups and the cops, though the trio's use of the country's mother tongue fuels a youth movement against the establishment trying to tamp down this indigenous language.
—Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 19 Jan. 2024
Sojourner Truth wasn’t Southern, and English wasn’t even her mother tongue.
—Cynthia Greenlee, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Feb. 2024
This is the real life story of how this anarchic Belfast trio became the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue.
—Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for mother tongue
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mother tongue.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Mother tongue.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mother%20tongue. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
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