The story
- Middle English · inherited frommother tonge
- English todaymother tongue
From Middle English mother tonge, modyr tong, equivalent to mother + tongue. Compare Old Norse móðurtunga (“mother tongue”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
mother tongue
Today it means: The language one first learned; the language one grew up with; one's native language. Full definition →
Middle English mother tonge