In Amy Tan's short story, "Mother Tongue," explain the essence of what "mother tongue" signifies in the story.

Amy Tan's short story, "Mother Tongue," is a wonderful
tale that addresses the substance of languages and how language is not only a tool of
communication, but a sociological tool of measuring individual
worth.

Amy Tan says that she has come to realize that
something unusual goes on with language—at least her own, based upon the Chinese her
mother grew up speaking, the English her mother uses as her "second language," Amy's use
of this special version of her mother's English, and her own perception that her
mother's English was somehow "broken"—at least this is how Ms. Tan
used to feel.

The author notes that
the language her mother speaks is very different than "American English," but that it is
deceiving in that her mother understands more than one might think when listening to her
speak.

You
should know that my mother's expressive command of English belies how much she actually
understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall
Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley
MacLaine's books with ease—all kinds of things I can't begin to
understand.

When Amy Tan
recalls growing up, her mother would have Amy speak on the phone,
pretending to be her mother, so that people would take her more
seriously. One time Amy did this with her mother's stockbroker. More recent to this
story, her mother had been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, but when she went to the
doctor's office, the CAT scan was lost and no one was remotely concerned with her need
to understand her prognosis—having lost a husband and son, both to
brain tumors. Amy's mother refused to leave the office until
someone called her daughter. When this occurred, everyone was much
more cordial with Amy than with her mother: promises were made and apologies graciously
extended. In both cases, the perception based on her mother's "limited" English gave
people the idea that Amy's mother wasn't very bright, or worse, was not worth their
time. This is the sociological aspect of language.

When Amy
first decided she wanted to be a writer, she was not encouraged to do so: English was
her second language, and the peculiarities of the language (which confuse native English
speakers, such as analogies) often confused her. When she began to write fiction, she
made a conscious decision to write to a specific audience: she
decided to write to her mother; as she was writing about relationships between mothers
and daughters in her stories.

It was
most gratifying to Amy Tan when her mother read The Joy
Luck Club, Amy's first book. Her mother gave her praise that meant a great
deal to Tan:

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...I knew I had succeeded where it counted when
my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: 'So easy to
read.'

I believe that there
is a play on words with the title, "Mother Tongue." It literally means one's first
language. If raised in Italy, it is Italian; in France, it is French. This is not to say
that people of other countries do not learn English as well, but generally there is a
language specific to the place where they were born: this is their mother tongue.
However, in Amy Tan's story, I believe she is making a statement about her
mother's form of English: her mother's tongue.
While it may be difficult for some people to understand it, it is part of
who she is, and it does not reflect negatively on her mother
because it is "different." She is just as special a person, despite what language she
uses or how she uses it.