Interviewer instructions
Column 7: Mother Tongue
87. Mother tongue of a person is the language spoken in childhood by the person's mother to the person. If the mother died in infancy, the language mainly spoken in the person's home in childhood will be the mother tongue. In case of infants and deaf mutes, the language usually spoken by the mother should be recorded. In case of doubts, the language mainly spoken in the household may be recorded.
87.1 You have to use the following codes for recording answer to this question:-
1. Khmer
2. Vietnamese
3. Chinese
4. Lao
5. Thai
6. French
7. English
8. Any other mother tongue which has to be specified
87.2 Please note in this connection the instructions given below:- You should tell the respondent that the information required here is mother tongue and not any other language spoken. It should also be made clear that this information is required purely for statistical purposes only.
(i) However, you are bound to record the language as returned by the person as his / her mother tongue and you should not enter into any argument with him / her and try to record any language other than what is returned.
(ii) If you have reasons to suspect that in your area mother tongue is not being truthfully returned, you should record the mother tongue returned through code and make a report to your supervisor for verification.
(iii) It is possible that mother tongue may be different for different persons in a household. It is, therefore, necessary to ask every person about his / her mother tongue.
