Mother tongue vs native language

Mother tongue and native language are set phrases that both refer to the language one has started learning from birth. One generally associates mother with tongue and native with language but it is sometimes found the other way round. Language and tongue are here synonyms. 

Let us consult some dictionaries. Cambridge Dictionary offers the following definition: 'mother tongue' is the first language that you learn when you are a baby, rather than a language learned at school or as an adult.

  According to Collins Dictionary, ‘native language’ is the language of the country that someone is born in.

So the question remains: is there any difference between these two concepts?

Mother tongue and native language have similar meanings and actually are often interchangeable; however, there is a subtle difference.

Native language refers to the language of the area the person grows up in. For example, growing up in the United States, your native language would be English. It's the language used every day everywhere you go by the vast majority of the people there.

Mother tongue refers to the language of the family you are born into. It’s the language your parents spoke at home. Often, parents will use the same language as that of the region (parents in the U.S. speaking English, for example), however, it may be not so. Take, for example, a family of immigrants from Mexico to the United States. In their house and with family/friends they may use Spanish. But at school, restaurants, stores, etc. they would use English. In this case, the native language is English and the mother tongue is Spanish.

Dagestan may be another good illustration. Various ethnic groups living in its territory have their own languages (Avar, Darghin, Kumyk, etc). However, Dagestan is part of the Russian Federation, and the Russian language is the lingua franca in the Republic. So, the languages of the ethnic groups are their mother tongues, while Russian is the native language.

Both these terms are translated as родной язык. However, the words mother and native are not identical. When using native, the reference is more to the country/nation, while mother is associated with the parent (mother or father), which gives it warmth and a personal touch that the word native does not have.

Kamilla Chupanova