The mother tongue is also known as the first language.
Mother tongue is a common expression that is also usually presented as popular language , mother tongue , native language or first language . It defines, as can be seen from the meaning of the two words that form it, the first language that an individual manages to master or, in other words, the language that is spoken in a given nation with respect to its natives, such as points out the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) .
The mother tongue is, in short, the one that is best known and understood, in terms of the subjective assessment that the person makes regarding the languages they master. It is also a language that is acquired naturally through interaction with the immediate environment, without pedagogical interventions and without consciously developed linguistic reflection .
More than one mother tongue
It should be noted that there are areas in the world in which a subject can have more than one mother tongue. That would be the case, for example, of someone from the Basque Country who learns to speak, from birth, Basque and Spanish .
The fact that in a country or a certain region its inhabitants speak and master two languages at the same level is what is known, in some cases, as bilingualism. This happens, as we have mentioned before, in the Basque Country but it also happens in Galicia, Catalonia or Valencia.
Outside of Spain there are also cases in which its citizens have two mother tongues and this normally occurs in areas that are characterized precisely because they have two official languages. Among them we can highlight enclaves of world geography such as Canada or Paraguay.
The mother tongue is learned within the family group itself.
The language within the family
Generally, the mother tongue is known and incorporated from within the family. Skill in the mother tongue is essential for subsequent learning since it constitutes the basis of thinking. On the other hand, a partial command of the mother tongue hinders the process of assimilating other languages.
According to the theories of Noam Chomsky and other linguists, the mother tongue can be learned until approximately twelve years of age. Once this period has passed, the linguistic abilities of each person are different and every incorporated language becomes a second language.
It is interesting to mention that International Mother Language Day is celebrated every February 21 .
The film "Mother Tongue"
In addition to all this, we can establish that the term we are referring to is the one that gives the title to a film that hit the big screen in 2010, Lengua Materna . A drama is this film production of Argentine origin that is directed by Liliana Paolinelli and starring performers of the stature of Claudia Lapacó, Virginia Innocenti and Mara Santucho.
The story we are told in this film is that of a woman who suddenly discovers that her forty-year-old daughter is a lesbian. This fact will make the mother try to understand said daughter and to do so she will discover a world that until that moment was completely unknown to her. But this interest in understanding will be seen by the girl as a real intrusion into her privacy.
This circumstance will lead to both characters establishing a difficult and problematic relationship whose final point will be understanding and acceptance.