How to Use mother tongue in a Sentence

mother tongue

noun
  • Which is my mother tongue and which an other tongue?
    — Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026
  • At each tap, the sound of her voice speaking her mother tongue emerges from the phone.
    — Time, 27 July 2023
  • The ones who needed to leave their mother tongue in order to find their true voice.
    — Literary Hub, 6 Nov. 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
  • The theme is the conflict between mother tongues and other tongues.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
  • How could someone who’d left China in fifth grade have kept up her mother tongue so well?
    — Shuang Xuetao, The New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2024
  • Hindi was, is, and always will be our mother tongue and national language.
    — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 28 Apr. 2022
  • Image The theme is the conflict between mother tongues and other tongues.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
  • Or rather, knew their home country, understood their history, and could speak to them in their mother tongue.
    — Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, USA TODAY, 22 July 2021
  • The font on the album cover is a play on the Geʽez script used in Amharic, her mother tongue.
    — Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 20 Sep. 2024
  • But some residents see a path toward preserving their mother tongue.
    — Safina Nabi, Christian Science Monitor, 22 July 2025
  • At the chalk clutched in his hand, the letters of her mother tongue like withered bloodstains, but white, distinct on the blackboard.
    — Han Kang, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023
  • Their goal is to vastly expand the amount of information available in their mother tongue.
    — NBC News, 6 Mar. 2015
  • Help with that one comes from Emery and his coaching staff, who have been asked by Onana to address him in their mother tongue.
    — Jacob Tanswell, The Athletic, 20 Aug. 2024
  • Looking at how people process foreign languages, as opposed to their mother tongue, could be an option as well.
    — Jennifer Walter, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2019
  • In New York, a poet who fled Odessa contemplates his mother tongue.
    — From Cnn Opinion, CNN, 2 Mar. 2022
  • And when this Medellín native greets me in his mother tongue, the melody of his voice is nearly as tender as his ballads.
    — Patricia Alfonso Tortolani, Allure, 23 July 2024
  • Her midwife gently coached her in their mother tongue, Inuktitut, as the morning sun cast a cool light across the floor.
    — Amber Bracken, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2020
  • To clarify his point, the festival regular must cite his mother tongue.
    — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 14 May 2026
  • Ultimately, people who want to speak in or create in their mother tongues can find workarounds to these problems.
    — Gina Anne Tam, Foreign Affairs, 19 Sep. 2023
  • People like her are rare and she's seen firsthand how Covid-19 is threatening her mother tongue.
    — Nicole Chavez, CNN, 5 Mar. 2021
  • But not as the kind of living, evolving entity that is used by a human community as a mother tongue.
    — Simeon Tegel, Washington Post, 23 June 2023
  • After all, as there is no such thing as a choice of mother tongue, there is no such thing as a choice of motherland, or, for that matter, of a mother.
    — Sigrid Nunez, The New York Review of Books, 27 May 2021
  • After all, as there is no such thing as a choice of mother tongue, there is no such thing as a choice of motherland, or, for that matter, of a mother.
    — Sigrid Nunez, The New York Review of Books, 11 May 2021
  • Each actress nails the comedic timing – and the accented English that flows with the cadence of their mother tongues.
    — Elizabeth B. Kim, Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 Nov. 2025
  • Czesław Miłosz found in himself the heart to give up the terrain of his mother tongue, and to keep writing poems in Polish.
    — Robert Pinsky, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2025
  • In our Romansh language, which is my mother tongue, Igniv means bird's nest, which is perfect for sharing.
    — Jennifer Leigh Parker, Forbes, 13 Dec. 2024
  • Work with people of different ages, backgrounds, perspectives, and mother tongues.
    — Rachel Konrad, Time, 9 Dec. 2025
  • Another novelty is a pope who speaks English as a mother tongue, something not seen for centuries.
    — Christopher Lamb, CNN Money, 8 May 2026
  • Some find themselves in the unenviable position of being one of the few (or the only) speakers of their mother tongue.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 21 Feb. 2017

Some of 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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