Top 30 Mother Tongue Quotes

Having portrayed English-speaking Indian characters in British and American projects, I have always wanted to use my mother tongue in an Indian film.

I think it’s really hard for me… to sing in English, because it’s not my mother tongue.

My first film was a Malayalam film where I played a small character and then my big debut happened in Kannada, which is also my mother tongue, in 2016, ‘U-Turn’ and since then my life has taken a different turn altogether.

I don’t know Bengali perfectly. I don’t know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I’ve always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.

Welsh is my mother tongue, and my children speak it. If you come and live in this community you’ll work out pretty quickly that it’s beneficial to learn the language, because if you’re going to the pub or a cafe you need to be a part of the local life.

We must teach science in the mother tongue. Otherwise, science will become a highbrow activity. It will not be an activity in which all people can participate.

Unlike our neighbours on the mainland of Europe, we have resisted creating an academy to legislate over proper English. We each have our linguistic bugbear, but few of us would want to freeze our mother tongue.

I am not really missing theatre as I get to act in films, that too in different languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Marathi, my mother tongue.

Once, a man at the customs duty check at the Delhi Airport asked me a question in Hindi, and I told him that I didn’t speak the language. He got angry and said, ‘How could you not speak in Hindi? Hindi is our mother tongue.’ I told him that it wasn’t my mother tongue. He got furious, and made me wait for over 45 minutes.

For us Indians, I don’t think English can ever exude that magic of emotions which our mother tongue can.

Tamil is my mother tongue.

When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.

I think in my mother tongue. That’s Hindi.

Tollywood has a special place in my heart because Telugu is my mother tongue, and when I sing in the language, my mom feels really happy.

I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.

I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

Here’s my advice to my brown friends: The next time you’re on an airplane in the U.S., just speak your mother tongue. That way, no one knows what you’re saying. Life goes on.

It is France. I know the league well. It is my mother tongue. Inevitably, there is an attraction for me. A return? It might not be my first choice, but of course, it is not impossible.

My mother tongue is German.

My mother tongue is Punjabi, but my first language is Urdu, which was the case with the people in undivided Punjab.

My mother tongue is Telugu. I was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu.

This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one’s mother tongue.

I’ve mostly worked in Hindi and occasionally Gujarati, which is my mother tongue.

Hindi is my mother tongue. Even though I do not get to use it as often, it’s still a part of me.

Marathi is my mother tongue; there’s a certain comfort level speaking in it.

I learnt to sing in Bengali, my mother tongue, then went on to sing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and every possible Indian language.

Foreign languages was the only thing that interested me when I was at school, so playing in another language… it is quite demanding because if it is not your mother tongue, you are missing some connotations and some emotional depth of certain things.

If I don’t make heritage visible and the strength of mother tongue important for my grandchildren, it scares me that they might say in 20 years from now, ‘Well, it is rumoured that we used to be Africans long ago.’ And in many urban areas, it’s already happening.

Tamil is almost like my mother tongue and for quite some time, I had been concentrating on Telugu.