home language

plural home languages

1. The main language spoken in a home.

   They are in the Tamil language, which is widely used as the home language throughout the Madras Presidency, and by all of the Tamils in the Island of Ceylon.

   1902, “Tamil Lyrics”, in The Missionary Herald, volume 98, number 5, page 182

   2 more examples

   The Pennsylvania-German patois, a gradual production of this mixture, is still the home language by the majority of firesides in many townships of Montgomery county, […]

   1880 July 9, “Hancock's Boyhood”, in The Stockton Daily Evening Mail, volume 1, number 128, page 1

   In addition, cognitive skills such as thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and word choice, which the child uses in learning his home language, are the same skills needed to learn English, thus paving the way for later school success.

   2009, H. Victoria Prieto, “One Language, Two Languages, Three Languages... More?”, in Young Children, volume 64, number 1, →JSTOR, page 52