Katy was born in London, and she speaks English ever since before she started to learn other Languages, for example Japanese, Thai, and she can speak Japanese and Thai fluently and well. She speaks these three languages in her daily life.
Now, when she wants to tell people about her mother tongue, can she say,
"My mother tongues are English, Japanese and Thai"?
Or "My mother tongue is English and my second langangues are Japanese and Thai"?
Learn English – Can someone have more than one mother tongue
word-meaning
Best Answer
Your mother tongue, also known as first language or native language, is the language you grow up speaking at home. Most people have one native language and may acquire second languages at various levels of fluency.
There are several principles that separate a "native language" from a second language:
It's slightly ambiguous from your question but I'm going to assume that Katy learned Japanese and Thai much later on than she learned English.
In your example, Katy's native language (mother tongue) is English and she has two second languages that she is fluent in, Japanese and Thai. This must be the case as English is the only language that meets all six of the above requirements.
For the purposes of your example, this is your answer, and no other information is necessary, since Katy did not learn the other two languages as a child.
As noted in the Wikipedia article, it is possible, should a child have bilingual parents, for that child to grow up speaking more than one language, and, thus have multiple "mother tongues".
For example, many people in Quebec, Canada speak both French and English:
If a couple has a child and chooses to speak both English and French in the home, that child would have two native languages.
Some regions have specific definitions for the term "mother tongue" that does not agree with what has been stated above, and are worth mentioning:
So this definition allows for only one "mother tongue".
Additionally, some groups refer to their ethnic group's language which they may or may not know as their "mother tongue":
Also, there is no requirement that a person still speak their "mother tongue" or be literate in it:
As an example, say a child (an orphan) was born in Russia and lived there until the age of five, speaking only Russian. At that point, the child was adopted by American parents and stopped speaking Russian entirely, switching to English, and no longer understands Russian at all.
I'd argue the child's "mother tongue" is Russian but they are a native speaker of English.
Some other interesting tidbits from the article:
This is important as it shows the general use of "mother" as in "motherland", or the "land of one's birth" so "mother tongue" is the "language of one's birth". Not specifically relating to the language that only your mother speaks, excluding whatever (possibly different) language your father might speak.