| 释义 |
mother language
Also (in sense 1) 5 modiris, modris langage.
1. One's native language.
c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. II. 393 Sum men wolde seie it in her modir langage as þei cunnen. c1449Pecock Repr. i. xiii. 66 Thei of the lay parti which han vsid the hool Bible or oonli the Newe Testament in her modris langage. a1568R. Ascham Scholem. ii. (Arb.) 117 In the rudest contrie, and most barbarous mother language, may be found yat can speake verie wiselie. 1659H. Thorndike Wks. (1846) II. 599 Whether translations in mother languages are to be had. 1805Southey Madoc in Azt. v, The very mother-language which I learnt, A lisping baby on my mother's knees.
2. A language from which others have sprung.
1680High Dutch Minerva a-la-mode (title-p.) Whereby the English may both easily and exactly learne the Neatest Dialect of the German Mother-Language. 1846Grote Greece ii. ii. II. 315 They seem capable of being traced back to a certain ideal mother-language. 1902Greenough & Kittredge Words 161 Similar processes enable us to postulate a number of similar mother-languages, as Celtic, Slavic, Greek, and so on.
†3. The language in which something was written.
1651C. Cartwright Cert. Relig. i. 364 Which also the antient Fathers have subscribed, which (I suppose) the Marquesse doth mean by the Scriptures Mother-language. |