Words are formed in tune with the happenings of life in general. One such word is mother tongue. A tongue is the softest muscle part with free movement in the mouth cavity. It could move up and down, in and out. Tongue is the first visible tool for our speaking ability. Later we have other parts of the mouth such as lips, teeth, vocal chords, throat, nasal cavity etc. So it is accepted that tongue cannot be taken easy and we have to accept the tongue in this word "mother tongue"
Now we come to the first word MOTHERWhy it's always mother tongue
why not a father tongue
Give it a thought...
Here is my thought flow.
A mother's voice is the first sound recorded in the mind of an infant. As years go by, the baby begins to imitate the movements of the lips of the people around it. Children find it easy to correlate with the words of the language that they heard when they are in the womb of the mother. Mother's voice is recorded in it's brain since its formation in the womb. Hence the baby's tongue could easily imitate the sounds. This is the most beautiful part of childhood for the parents. They make fun of these peculiar sounds later to the grown up boy or girl. Even as an infant, a baby stops crying the moment it hears the mother's voice, not father's. Such is the psychological proximity for the infant.
These sounds when uttered with clarity become the first database for our future linguistic abilities. Her language becomes ours. Whatever language we inherited from the mother becomes our mother tongue. Do we need anymore proof to accept this word formation -- mother tongue!
Analysing words to understand their origin also helps us to have a firm base for our vocabulary.
Now Make your guess... :)
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