language
English
Pronunciation
- enPR: lăngʹgwĭj, IPA(key): /ˈlæŋɡwɪd͡ʒ/
Audio (US) (file) - Hyphenation: lan‧guage
Etymology 1
From Middle English langage, language, from Old French language, from Vulgar Latin *linguāticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Old Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Middle English rearde, ȝerearde (“language”) (from Old English reord (“language, speech”)), Middle English londspeche (“language, national language”) (from Old English *landsprǣċ (“language, national tongue”), Old English þēod and þēodisċ (“language”), Middle English lede, leden (“language, speech, utterance”) (from Old English lēoden (“language, national tongue”) > Scottish English leid (“language”)).
Noun
language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)
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The English Wiktionary uses the English language to define words from all of the world's languages.
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- (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
- The English language and the German language are related.
- Deaf and mute people communicate using languages like ASL.
- 1867, Report on the Systems of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907 →ISBN, page 240:
- Hence the natural language of the mute is, in schools of this class, suppressed as soon and as far as possible, and its existence as a language, capable of being made the reliable and precise vehicle for the widest range of thought, is ignored.
- 1900, William Beckford, The History of the Caliph Vathek, page 50:
- No language could express his rage and despair.
- 2000, Geary Hobson, The Last of the Ofos →ISBN, page 113:
- Mr. Darko, generally acknowledged to be the last surviving member of the Ofo Tribe, was also the last remaining speaker of the tribe's language.
- (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.
- the gift of language
- (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
- 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:
- Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
- 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:
- legal language; the language of chemistry
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- (countable, uncountable) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way.
- body language; the language of the eyes
- 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Becoming a Counselor →ISBN:
- A tale about themselves [is] told by people with help from the universal languages of their eyes, their hands, and even their shirting feet.
- (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
- 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:
- A more likely hypothesis was that the attacked leaves were transmitting some airborne chemical signal to sound the alarm, rather like insects sending out warnings […] But this is the first time that a plant-to-plant language has been detected.
- 2009, Animals in Translation, page 274:
- Prairie dogs use their language to refer to real dangers in the real world, so it definitely has meaning.
- 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:
- (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
- 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages →ISBN, page 94:
- In fact pointers are called references in these languages to distinguish them from pointers in languages like C and C++.
- 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages →ISBN, page 94:
- (uncountable) Manner of expression.
- (Can we date this quote?) Cowper:
- Their language simple, as their manners meek, […]
- (Can we date this quote?) Cowper:
- (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.
- The language used in the law does not permit any other interpretation.
- The language he used to talk to me was obscene.
- (uncountable) Profanity.
- 1978, James Carroll, Mortal Friends, →ISBN, page 500:
- "Where the hell is Horace?" ¶ "There he is. He's coming. You shouldn't use language."
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Synonyms
- (form of communication): see Thesaurus:language
- (vocabulary of a particular field): see Thesaurus:jargon
- (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
- (particular words used): see Thesaurus:wording
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
- See Category:en:Languages
- artificial language
- auxiliary language
- bad language
- body language
- common language
- computer/computing language
- constructed language
- dead language
- endangered language
- engineered language
- everyday language
- experimental language
- extinct language
- foreign language
- formal language
- foul language
- global language
- hardware description language
- indigenous language
- international language
- link language
- literary language
- living language
- logical language
- machine language
- main language
- mathematical language
- meta language
- metaphorical language
- minority language
- modern language
- multi-paradigm language
- natural language
- object language
- pattern language
- philosophical language
- phonetic language
- planned language
- principal language
- private language
- programming language
- scripting language
- secular language
- sign language
- spoken language
- standard language
- subject-oriented language
- target language
- universal language
- vehicular language
- vernacular language
- working language
- world language
- active-stative language
- agglutinative language
- analytic language
- direct-inverse language
- E-language
- ergative-absolutive language
- I-language
- isolating language
- nominative-accusative language
- oligosynthetic language
- OV language
- polysynthetic language
- synthetic language
- tripartite language
- VO language
Derived terms
- English-language
- German-language
- interlanguage
- language barrier
- language code
- language cop
- language death
- language extinction
- language family
- language lab
- language laboratory
- language model
- language of education
- language of flowers
- language planning
- language police
- language pollution
- language processing
- language school
- language shift
- language technology
- language transfer
- languaging
- mind one's language
- speak someone's language
- speak the same language
- Turkish-language
Related terms
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
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Verb
language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)
- (rare, now nonstandard, or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.
- (Can we date this quote?) Fuller:
- Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense.
- (Can we date this quote?) Fuller:
See also
Etymology 2
Alteration of languet.
Noun
language (plural languages)
- A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.
- 1896, William Horatio Clarke, The Organist's Retrospect, page 79:
- A flue-pipe is one in which the air passes through the throat, or flue, which is the narrow, longitudinal aperture between the lower lip and the tongue, or language. […] The language is adjusted by slightly elevating or depressing it, […]
- 1896, William Horatio Clarke, The Organist's Retrospect, page 79:
Old French
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Vulgar Latin *linguāticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /lãnˈɡad͡ʒə/