Mother tongue

Mother tongue (native language, first language) is the language a person learns first. Usually a child learns the basics of mother tongue from his family.

Good skills in native language are essential for further learning, as native language is thought to be a base of thinking. Incomplete first language skills often make learning other languages difficult. Native language has therefore a central role in education.

See also: bilingual, language acquisition, literacy, second language, sign language

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.