Name: Why's it called 'mother tongue'?: 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2020-03-23T08:20:05.000Z
Duration: 6 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Sam: Hello. This is 6 Minute English, I'm Sam.

Sam: Georgina, what languages do you speak?

‘mother tongue’, isn’t it? Like many

that don’t refer to gender-specific ideas

today. But first, this week’s quiz question,

A: Esperanto, B: Afrikaans, or C: Light Warlpiri

Georgina: Well, I’ve only heard of two of

think I’m going to choose the other one,

Light Warlpiri – purely as I’ve never heard

intuition is correct later in the programme.

why we use the term ‘mother tongue’ in English.

differently but definitely there’s a strong

things and so there’s that point of origin

metaphor that applies in a lot of languages.

Georgina: Well, she says it’s a form of

else. In a metaphor, though, you don’t say

that something is like something else, you

Georgina: So, this is perhaps the point of

but definitely there’s a strong association

there’s that point of origin metaphor that

Sam: Language is very powerful in society

… in English of course we have some words

that are gendered like ‘actor’ and ‘actress’

or ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress’ and very

job than the feminine form, so an actor is

a fancier job than an actress and a waiter

they could then come with pay disparities

Georgina: Well, she says that people perceive

vocabulary. The male form is perceived to

an inequality and in the world of work it

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Why's it called 'mother tongue'?: 6 Minute English

specific

cognitive

perceive

phrase