Mother tongue is very often seen as bipartite, i.e. that it is indicated on two levels, the level of the individual and the level of the collective. Such ambiguity of the notion can cause certain tensions manifested as the tension between the individual speaker and his/her community, but also within the speaker (Škiljan 1992). On the other hand, today it is accepted that individual speakers can have more than one mother tongue. This is in accordance with the possibility to choose between different identities expressed through language and the use of variants, by mixing idioms and languages, through bilingualism, etc.
In the present paper the notion of mother tongue is analysed on both levels and in the specific context of a multilingual area. We tried to see how the notion of mother tongue is used and understood by its users, and how it is perceived and changed depending on e.g. the commu-nity, education, and personal life history. As the source for the analysis of the individual per-ception of mother tongue in-depth interviews conducted in Istria in spring of 2007 were used. Such an analysis is contextualised within the definition of the notion of mother tongue by of-ficials and official documents, e.g. the authorities’ documents about language issues.Materinski se jezik često promatra kao višestruk, tj. na razini pojedinca i razini zajednice. Takva višeznačnost samoga koncepta može prouzročiti određene napetosti između pojedinoga govornika i njegove/njezine zajednice, ali i unutar samoga govornika (Škiljan 1992). S druge strane, danas je sasvim prihvatljiva ideja da pojedinac može imati više od jednoga materin-skoga govora/jezika što je u skladu s mogućnošću biranja između različitih identiteta iskaza-nih jezikom, različitim varijantama, ili pak miješanjem jezika i idioma te kroz dvojezičnost. U ovom se tekstu koncept materinskoga jezika analizira na objema razinama u specifičnom kon-tekstu višejezične sredine. Nastojali smo pokazati kako pojam materinskoga jezika razumiju i upotrebljavaju njegovi govornici, te kako se on mijenja i različito percipira ovisno o npr. za-jednici, obrazovanju, osobnoj povijesti. Korpus za analizu sačinjen je od dubinskih polustruk-turiranih intervjua sakupljenih u Istri 2007
