Description

MTONGML indicates the person's mother tongue: the language spoken in the respondent's infancy or by their mother.

Comparability — General

This variable is generally comparable across samples, aside from the following issues: 1) The 2009 questionnaire defines "mother tongue" as the language usually spoken in the household during the person's infancy, while earlier samples define it explicitly as the language spoken by the person's mother; 2) The universe differs across samples; the 2009 census asked the question of persons age 3+, while earlier censuses restricted this question to persons age 6+; 3) The "French" and "English" categories are present in the 1987 Mali sample but not in later samples; 4) The 2009 census counts Bambara and Malinké as well as Bobo and Dafing as separate languages; this detail is available in the unharmonized source variables.

The everyday language spoken by the person is recorded in the variable LANGML.

Universe

Availability

• Mali: 1987, 1998, 2009