| 释义 |
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.
c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 114 Secler lordys schuld, in defawte of prelatys, lerne and preche þe law of God in here modyr tonge. c1400Brut (E.E.T.S.) 315 Hit was ordeyned..þat men of lawe..fro þat tyme forth shold plede in her moder tunge. c1470Henryson Mor. Fab. Prol. v, In mother toung of lating I wald preif To mak ane maner of translatioun. 1519Interl. 4 Elements (Percy Soc.) 3 The Grekes, the Romayns, with many other mo, In their moder tonge wrot warkes excellent. 1540Cranmer Pref. to Gt. Bible 1 The Saxones tonge whiche at that tyme was oure mothers tonge. 1617Moryson Itin. iii. 2 Children..soone learne forraigne languages, and sooner forget the same, yea and their mothers tongue also. 1766Fordyce Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767) I. vii. 294 The..just pronunciation of their mother-tongue. 1874Blackie Self-Cult. 34 Without the intervention of the mother tongue.
attrib.1615J. Stephens Ess. & Char. (1857) 256 The learning which lyes in mother-tongue translations.
b. transf.
1781Gibbon Decl. & F. III. 15 note, His [Shakespeare's] mother-tongue, the language of nature, is the same in Cappadocia and in Britain. 1865Tylor 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.
c1645Howell Lett. (1892) II. 475 The Mother-Tongues of Europe are thirteen. 1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., Of mother tongues, Scaliger reckons ten in Europe. 1848Latham Eng. Lang. ii. iv. (ed. 2) 83 It [American English] was earliest separated from the mother-tongue. |