Sociolingüística catalana. Mother Language, Father Language, Nanny Language:
Who Learns What from Whom in Catalonia, per Paul O'Donnell, CONTINUA. ...
cultura.gencat.es/llengcat/noves/hm01hivern-primavera/ catalana/donnel2_4.htm

Les temps nous changent. On parle maintenant de maison maternelle et de langue paternelle. En une période où la mère et le père travaillent tous deux à l'extérieur, quand ils sont de langues différentes, quand la mère ne bénéficie point de conditions décentes de travail lui permettant de demeurer à la maison, avec son nourrisson quelques saisons, quand c'est une nounou sud-américaine qui veille sur les balbutiements du bébé, peut-on encore parler de langue maternelle dans la maison familiale? L'enfant saisit alors des mots de la langue maternelle, des expressions de la langue paternelle et se surprend à apprendre sa langue.

if you prefer "tongue" to "language"

this just doesn't exist. "Langue maternelle" does not mean "langue de votre mère" and we all know that.

Best translation could be "language learned with my (his) father".

HTH

similar to one's own native language

father's language.

It just the language of the guy's father and that's said as father's language. We actually don't know if it's the father's native language. Just that it is his language.

Hi everybody,

Sorry for answering an almost 10 years old discussion now.
I am the original writer of the CV you are discussing about, and I didn't know about your discussion. If I had known, I probably would have answered sooner.

I'm very glad that a simple "joke", or "play on words" can make such great comments.

Sorry also, that nobody asked me for my intentions. As far as I know, a translator should ask his client about any meaning he isn't sure about. That's part of the translator's job.
Now, since a few years, I am also a translator. See my website at: http://www.lesitrad.com

So far about the context.

Now, I wrote "langue paternelle" instead of "langue maternelle", simply because my father is French, and my mother German, and I speak both languages. In fact both are "mother languages".
"langue paternelle" is never used instead of "langue maternelle" in French.
Also "father tongue" is never used instead of "mother tongue" in English.

It was simply a play on words, which sound nice to me. It can also open a discussion with anyone reading it (as you did), and also points out a certain sexism in such terms.

As your discussion shows, it's not easy to translate something you don't know the real context about. And the most difficult task for a translator is to translate jokes or play on words. A professional translator should try to translate play on words if he can (and if he detects them), even if it's not really good English (but here it wasn't also not really good French…)


So I thought: let's make a joke! And use "father tongue" instead of "mother tongue"
Just for the fun, and to enrich the language.

Thanks again for all your cogitations.