Mother tongue and our first language

The term "mother tongue" should not be interpreted to mean that it is the language of one's mother. In some paternal societies, the wife moves in with the husband and thus may have a different first language, or dialect, than the local language of the husband. Yet their children usually only speak their local language. Only a few will learn to speak their mothers' languages like natives. Mother in this context probably originated from the definition of mother as source, or origin; as in mother-country or -land.

In some countries such as Kenya and India, "mother tongue" is used to indicate the language of one's ethnic group (ethnic tongue), in both common and journalistic parlance (e.g. 'I have no apologies for not learning my mother tongue', rather than one's first language. A similar usage of the term was employed in Ireland in the early-to-mid twentieth century, with Irish being referred to as the "mother tongue" of all Irish people, even of those whose first language was English. Also in Singapore, "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's ethnic group regardless of actual proficiency, while the "first language" refers to the English language, which is the lingua franca for most post-independence Singaporeans due to its use as the language of instruction in government schools and as a working language despite it not being a native tongue for most Singaporeans.

International Mother Language Day Monument in Sydney, Australia, unveiling ceremony, 19 February 2006

J. R. R. Tolkien in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh distinguishes the "native tongue" from the "cradle tongue", the latter being the language one happens to learn during early childhood, while one's true "native tongue" may be different, possibly determined by an inherited linguistic taste, and may later in life be discovered by a strong emotional affinity to a specific dialect (Tolkien personally confessed to such an affinity to the Middle English of the West Midlands in particular).

21 February has been proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999.

"quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_tongue"

Do not forget our mother tongue....your first language is English, then there are also perfect hokkien? perfect hakka? perfect teochiew? are we perfectionist? Perfect Telugu, perfect Malayam, perfect Irish, perfect Hebrew, perfect Greek, do you mean every languages are preserved perfectly throughout ages, no mistake had been done in translation and interpretation in the KJV! Why there were revisions? Did they claim perfection in translating the KJV in 1611?

What is our mother tongue anyway?