mother tongue
Also (in sense 1) 6–7 mothers tongue.
[In sense 1, mother was originally the uninflected genitive; cf. the form mothers tongue in 16–17th c.]
1. One's native language.
| c 1380 Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 114 Secler lordys schuld, in defawte of prelatys, lerne and preche þe law of God in here modyr tonge. c 1400 Brut (E.E.T.S.) 315 Hit was ordeyned..þat men of lawe..fro þat tyme forth shold plede in her moder tunge. c 1470 Henryson Mor. Fab. Prol. v, In mother toung of lating I wald preif To mak ane maner of translatioun. 1519 Interl. 4 Elements (Percy Soc.) 3 The Grekes, the Romayns, with many other mo, In their moder tonge wrot warkes excellent. 1540 Cranmer Pref. to Gt. Bible 1 The Saxones tonge whiche at that tyme was oure mothers tonge. 1617 Moryson Itin. iii. 2 Children..soone learne forraigne languages, and sooner forget the same, yea and their mothers tongue also. 1766 Fordyce Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767) I. vii. 294 The..just pronunciation of their mother-tongue. 1874 Blackie Self-Cult. 34 Without the intervention of the mother tongue. |
| attrib. 1615 J. Stephens Ess. & Char. (1857) 256 The learning which lyes in mother-tongue translations. |
b. transf.| 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. III. 15 note, His [Shakespeare's] mother-tongue, the language of nature, is the same in Cappadocia and in Britain. 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man. ii. 17 The mother-tongue of the deaf and dumb, is the language of signs. |
2. An original language from which others spring.
| c 1645 Howell Lett. (1892) II. 475 The Mother-Tongues of Europe are thirteen. 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v., Of mother tongues, Scaliger reckons ten in Europe. 1848 Latham Eng. Lang. ii. iv. (ed. 2) 83 It [American English] was earliest separated from the mother-tongue. |