Mother tongue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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

The original article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_tongue.
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