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A language is a form of symbolic
Symbol

A symbol is something such as an entity, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention....
 communication
Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
 in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon
Phenomenon

A phenomenon is any observation occurrence. In popular usage, a phenomenon often refers to an extraordinary event. In physics, a phenomenon may be a feature of matter, energy, or spacetime....
. Strictly speaking, language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language.

In Western Philosophy
Western philosophy

Western philosophy is a term that refers to philosophy thinking in the Western world, as distinct from Eastern philosophy and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, language has long been closely associated with reason
Reason

Reason may refer to Mind#Mental faculties that consciously create explanations in order to judge, decide, solve problems, generalize, and give examples, among other activities....
, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols.






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Quotations


Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit.

Whipple

In the commerce of speech use only coin of gold and silver.

Joubert

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Mark Hopkins

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

Bovee

He who is ignorant of other languages is ignorant of his own.

Goethe

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. Henry David Thoreau






Encyclopedia


A language is a form of symbolic
Symbol

A symbol is something such as an entity, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention....
 communication
Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
 in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon
Phenomenon

A phenomenon is any observation occurrence. In popular usage, a phenomenon often refers to an extraordinary event. In physics, a phenomenon may be a feature of matter, energy, or spacetime....
. Strictly speaking, language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language.

In Western Philosophy
Western philosophy

Western philosophy is a term that refers to philosophy thinking in the Western world, as distinct from Eastern philosophy and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, language has long been closely associated with reason
Reason

Reason may refer to Mind#Mental faculties that consciously create explanations in order to judge, decide, solve problems, generalize, and give examples, among other activities....
, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 philosophical terminology, the same word, logos
Logos

is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos....
, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosophy, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory....
 used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason, as will be discussed below. More commonly though, the English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 word "language", derived ultimately from lingua, Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 for tongue
Tongue

The tongue is skeletal muscle on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing . It is the primary organ of taste. Much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds....
, typically refers only to expressions of reason which can be understood by other people, most obviously by speaking.

Properties of language

A set of commonly accepted signs (indices, icons or symbols) is only one feature of language; all languages must define (i) the structural relationships between these signs in a system of grammar
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, (ii) the context wherein the signs are used (pragmatics
Pragmatics

Pragmatics or intent is the study of how the arrangement of words and phrases can alter the meaning of a sentence, it deals with the structural ambiguity in a sentence....
) and (iii) dependent on their context the content specifity, i.e. its meaning (semantics
Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
). Rules of grammar are one of the characteristics sometimes said to distinguish language from other forms of communication. They allow a finite set of signs to be manipulated to create a potentially infinite number of grammatical utterances.

Another property of language is that its symbols are arbitrary
Arbitrary

Arbitrariness is a term given to choices and actions which are considered to be done not by means of any underlying principle or logic, but by whim or some decidedly illogical formula....
. Any concept or grammatical rule can be mapped onto a symbol. In other words, most languages make use of sound, but the combinations of sounds used do not have any necessary and inherent meaning – they are merely an agreed-upon convention to represent a certain thing by users of that language. For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
 word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
  itself that forces Spanish speakers to convey the idea of "nothing". Another set of sounds (for example, the English word nothing) could equally be used to represent the same concept, but all Spanish speakers have acquired or learned to correlate this meaning for this particular sound pattern. For Slovenian, Croatian
Croatian language

Croatian language is a South Slavic languages which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in neighbouring countries where Croats are Indigenous peoples, in Italian region of Molise, and parts of the Croats diaspora....
, Serbian
Serbian language

name=Serbian|nativename=|pronunciation=['sr?pski?]|familycolor=Indo-European|map=|states=See below under "Official status", besides that in Croatia and as an immigrant's language spread over Central Europe and Western Europe, as well as Northern America...
 or Bosnian
Bosnian language

Bosnian , sometimes referred as Bosniak/Bosniac language , is a South Slavic languages native to the Bosniaks and all other citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who consider it to be their mother tongue....
 speakers on the other hand, means something else; it means "hope".

This arbitrariness even applies to words with an onomatopoetic dimension (i.e. words that to some extent simulate the sound of the token referred to). For example, several animal names (e.g. cuckoo
Cuckoo

The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos ....
, whip-poor-will
Whip-poor-will

The Whip-poor-will or whippoorwill, Caprimulgus vociferus, is a medium-sized nightjar from North America and Central America. The Whip-poor-will is commonly heard within its range, but less often seen....
, katydid) are derived from sounds the respective animal makes, but these forms did not have to be chosen for these meanings. Non-onomatopoetic words can stand just as easily for the same meaning. For instance, the katydid is called a "bush cricket" in British English, a term that bears no relation to the sound the animal makes. In time, onomatopoetic words can also change in form, losing their mimetic status. Onomatopoetic words may have an inherent relation to their referent, but this meaning is not inherent, thus they do not violate arbitrariness.

Origin of language

Even before the theory of evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 made discussion of more animal-like human ancestors common place, philosophical and scientific speculation casting doubt on the use of early language has been frequent throughout history. In modern Western Philosophy, speculation by authors such as Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosophy, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory....
, and later Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major philosopher, writer, and composer of the eighteenth century The Age of Enlightenment, whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought....
 led to the Académie française
Académie française

L'Acad?mie fran?aise, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent France learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Acad?mie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to Louis XIII of France....
 declaring the subject off-limits.

The origin of language is of great interest to philosophers because language is such an essential characteristic of human life. In classical Greek philosophy
Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception....
 such inquiry was approached by considering the nature of things, in this case human nature
Human nature

Human nature is the concept that there are a set of characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that all 'normal' human beings have in common....
. Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, for example, treated humans as creatures with reason and language by their intrinsic nature, related to their natural propensities to be "political", and dwell in city-state
City-state

A city-state is an independent country whose territory consists solely of a single major city and the area immediately surrounding it. Examples include the city-states of ancient Greece , the Phoenician cities of Canaan , the Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia , the Mayans of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , the central Asian cities along the Silk Roa...
 communities (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: poleis
Polis

A polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."...
).

Hobbes followed by John Locke
John Locke

John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricism, but is equally important to social contract theory....
 and others claimed that language is an extension of the "speech" which humans have within themselves, which in a sense takes the classical view that reason
Reason

Reason may refer to Mind#Mental faculties that consciously create explanations in order to judge, decide, solve problems, generalize, and give examples, among other activities....
 is one of the most primary characteristics of human nature. Others have argued the opposite - that reason developed out of the need for more complex communication. Rousseau, despite writing before the publication of Darwin
Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin Royal Society was an English people natural history who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolution over time from common descent, through the process he called natural selection....
's theory of evolution, claimed that there had once been humans who had no language or reason and who developed language first, rather than reason - the development of which things he explicitly described as a mixed blessing, with many negative characteristics.

Since the arrival of Darwin the subject has been approached more often by scientists than philosophers. For example, neurologist Terrence Deacon
Terrence Deacon

Terrence Deacon is an United States anthropology . He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Biological Anthropology and Neuroscience at University of California, Berkeley....
 in his Symbolic Species
Symbolic Species

The Symbolic Species is a book by the anthropologist Terrence Deacon. It tries to unravel the evolution of language and why human language is so unique, and unique to humans....
 has argued that reason and language "coevolved". Merlin Donald
Merlin Donald

Merlin Wilfred Donald is a Canada psychology and cognitive psychology neuroscience, and a researcher, educator, and author in the corresponding fields....
 sees language as a later development building upon what he refers to as mimetic
Mimesis

Mimesis is a Critical theory and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include: imitation, Representation , mimicry, imitatio, nonsensuous similarity, the act of Resemblance, the act of expression, and the Impression management....
 culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
, emphasizing that this coevolution depended upon the interactions of many individuals. He writes that:

A shared communicative culture, with sharing of mental representations to some degree, must have come first, before language, creating a social environment in which language would have been useful and adaptive.


The specific causes of the natural selection that led to language are however still the subject of much speculation, but a common theme which goes right back to Aristotle is that many theories propose that the gains to be had from language and/or reason were probably mainly in the area of increasingly sophisticated social structures.

In more recent times a theory of mirror neurons has emerged in relation to language, Ramachandran has gone so far as to claim that "mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments". Mirror neurons are located in the human inferior frontal cortex and superior parietal lobe, and are unique in that they fire when completing an action and also when witnessing an actor performing the same action. Various studies have proposed a theory of mirror neurons related to language development .

The study of language


Linguistics


Linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 is the scientific
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
 study of language, encompassing a number of sub-fields. At the core of theoretical linguistics
Theoretical linguistics

Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology , and semantics....
 are the study of language structure (grammar
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
) and the study of meaning (semantics
Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
). The first of these encompasses morphology
Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules....
 (the formation and composition of word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s), syntax
Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing Sentence s in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the Irish syntax"....
 (the rules that determine how words combine into phrase
Phrase

In grammar, a phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a Sentence .For example the house at the end of the street is a phrase....
s and sentences
Sentence (linguistics)

In linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words, bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it, often preceded and followed in speech by pauses, having one of a small number of characteristic intonation patterns, and typically expressing an independent statement, question, request, command, et...
) and phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
 (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics
Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception....
 is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived
Speech perception

Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans are able to interpret and understand the sounds used in language. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology....
.

Theoretical linguistics
Theoretical linguistics

Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology , and semantics....
 is mostly concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered as the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax
Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing Sentence s in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the Irish syntax"....
, phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
, morphology
Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules....
, and semantics
Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
. Applied linguistics
Applied linguistics

Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems....
 attempts to put linguistic theories into practice through areas like translation
Translation

Translation is the hermeneutics of the Meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an Dynamic and formal equivalence text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language....
, stylistics
Stylistics (linguistics)

Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in wiktionary:context. For example, the language of advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc., or the language of a period in time, all are used distinctively and belong in a particular situation....
, literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
 and theory
Literary theory

Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes?in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense?considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy,...
, discourse analysis
Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis , or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken or signed language use....
, speech therapy
Speech therapy

#redirect Speech and language pathology...
, speech pathology and foreign language teaching
Second language acquisition

Second language acquisition is the process by which people learn a second language in addition to their first language. The term second language is used to describe the acquisition of any language after the acquisition of the mother tongue....
.

History

The historical record of linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 begins in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 with Pa?ini
Pa?ini

was an Iron Age India Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara .He is known for his Vyakarana, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit Morphology in the grammar known as 'Ashtadhyayi' , the foundational text of the grammatical branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of historical Ved...
, the 5th century BCE grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology
Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules....
, known as the (???????????) and with Tolkappiyar, the 2rd century BCE grammarian of the Tamil
Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has Official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore....
 work Tolkappiyam
Tolkappiyam

The Tolkappiyam is a work on the grammar of the Tamil language and the earliest extant work of Tamil literature. It is written in the form of noorpaa or short formulaic compositions and comprises three books - the Ezhuttadikaram, the Solladikaram and the Poruladikaram....
(?????????????). grammar is highly systematized and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
, the morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
, and the root
Root (linguistics)

The root is the primary lexicology unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantics content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
; Western linguists only recognized the phoneme some two millennia later. Tolkappiyar's work is perhaps the first to describe articulatory phonetics
Articulatory phonetics

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians attempt to document how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures....
 for a language. Its classification of the alphabet into consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
s and vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s, and elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, and consonants, which he put into classes, were also breakthroughs at the time. In the Middle East
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
, the Persian
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
 linguist Sibawayh
Sibawayh

Sibawayh was a linguistics of Persian origin born ca. 760 in the town of Bayza in the Fars province of Iran, died in Shiraz, Iran, also in the Fars, around ....
 made a detailed and professional description of Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 in 760 CE in his monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw (?????? ?? ?????, The Book on Grammar), bringing many linguistic
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 aspects of language to light. In his book, he distinguished phonetics
Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception....
 from phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
.

Later in the West, the success of science
Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
, mathematics
Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
, and other formal system
Formal system

In logic, a formal system consists of a formal language together with a deductive system which consists of a set of inference rules and/or axioms....
s in the 20th century led many to attempt a formalization of the study of language as a "semantic code". This resulted in the academic discipline of linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, the founding of which is attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Switzerland linguistics whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century....
. In the 20th century, substantial contributions to the understanding of language came from Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Switzerland linguistics whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century....
, Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste
Émile Benveniste

?mile Benveniste was a France Structuralism linguistics, an apprentice of A. Meillet and his successor, who, in his later years, became enlightened by the structural view of language through the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, although he was unwilling to grasp it at first, being a convinced follower of the sociological stance of his teacher....
 and Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson

Roman Osipovich Jakobson, , was a Russian linguist and literary critic, associated with the Russian Formalism school. He became one of the most influential linguistics of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structuralism of language, poetry, and art....
, which are characterized as being highly systematic
Systematic

Systematic was a Rock music band from San Jose, California.The band was one of the first signings to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich's record label, The Music Company ....
.

Human languages


Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them falls under the purview of linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
. A common progression for natural languages is that they are considered to be first spoken, then written, and then an understanding and explanation of their grammar is attempted.

Languages live, die, move from place to place, and change with time. Any language that ceases to change or develop is categorized as a dead language. Conversely, any language that is in a continuous state of change is known as a living language or modern language
Modern language

A modern language is any human language that is currently in use.The term is used in a language education context to distinguish between languages such as French language and German language, which are spoken by millions of people and are learned for their usefulness as tools of communication or lingua franca, and classical languages such...
.

Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible. For instance, there are a few dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s of German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 similar to some dialects of Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
. The transition between languages within the same language family
Language family

A language family is a group of languages related Genetic from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with Alpha taxonomy, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics....
 is sometimes gradual (see dialect continuum
Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
).

Some like to make parallels with biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
, where it is not possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interaction
Interaction

Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect....
s between languages and population
Population

File:Population density.pngIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings....
s. (See Dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
 or August Schleicher for a longer discussion.)

The concepts of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache
Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework is a tool developed by Sociolinguistics for analysing and categorising the status of language variety along the wikt:cline between autonomous languages on the one hand and dialects on the other....
 are used to make finer distinctions about the degrees of difference between languages or dialects.

Artificial languages


Constructed languages


Some individuals and groups have constructed their own artificial languages, for practical, experimental, personal, or ideological reasons. International auxiliary languages are generally constructed languages that strive to be easier to learn than natural languages; other constructed languages strive to be more logical ("loglangs") than natural languages; a prominent example of this is Lojban
Lojban

Lojban is a constructed language, syntactically unambiguous human language based on First-order logic. Its predecessor is Loglan, the original logical language by James Cooke Brown....
.

Some writers, such as J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Order of the British Empire was an English people English literature, poetry, Philology, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion....
, have created fantasy languages, for literary, artistic
Artistic language

An artistic language is a constructed language designed for aesthetic pleasure. Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages usually have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages....
 or personal reasons. The fantasy language of the Klingon
Klingon

Klingons are a warrior race in the fictional Star Trek universe. They are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and seven feature films....
 race has in recent years been developed by fans of the Star Trek series, including a vocabulary and grammar.

Constructed languages are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by natural languages.

This part of ISO 639 also includes identifiers that denote constructed (or artificial) languages. In order to qualify for inclusion the language must have a literature and it must be designed for the purpose of human communication. Specifically excluded are reconstructed languages and computer programming languages.

International auxiliary languages


Some languages, most constructed, are meant specifically for communication between people of different nationalities or language groups as an easy-to-learn second language. Several of these languages have been constructed by individuals or groups. Natural, pre-existing languages may also be used in this way - their developers merely catalogued and standardized their vocabulary and identified their grammatical rules. These languages are called naturalistic. One such language, Latino Sine Flexione
Latino sine Flexione

Latino sine flexione is an auxiliary language invented by the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano in 1903. It is a simplified version of Latin, and retains its vocabulary....
, is a simplified form of Latin. Two others, Occidental
Occidental language

The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a constructed language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
 and Novial
Novial

Novial [nov- + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed language international auxiliary language intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language....
, were drawn from several Western languages.

To date, the most successful auxiliary language is Esperanto
Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed language international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L....
, invented by Polish ophthalmologist Zamenhof
L. L. Zamenhof

Ludwik Lazarz Zamenhof was an Ophthalmology, philologist, and the inventor of Esperanto, a constructed language designed for international communication....
. It has a relatively large community roughly estimated at about 2 million speakers worldwide, with a large body of literature, songs, and is the only known constructed language to have native speakers
Native Esperanto speakers

Native Esperanto speakers are born into families in which Esperanto is spoken. Often one or both parents choose to use Esperanto as the main language in communicating with the children, who thus acquire the language in the way that other children acquire their native languages, so that their first word as an infant may be "Panjo" or "Pacjo"...
, such as the Hungarian-born American businessman George Soros
George Soros

George Soros is an United States currency Speculation, stock investor, businessman, philanthropist, and activism.Soros is estimated to be worth around $9.0 billion in net worth; he is ranked by Forbes as the List of billionaires ....
. Other auxiliary languages with a relatively large number of speakers and literature are Interlingua
Interlingua

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association . It is the second or third most widely used IAL and the most widely used International auxiliary language#Classification IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are largely...
 and Ido
Ido

Ido is a constructed language created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages....
.

Controlled languages


Controlled natural languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity. The purpose behind the development and implementation of a controlled natural language typically is to aid non-native speakers of a natural language in understanding it, or to ease computer processing of a natural language. An example of a widely used controlled natural language is Simplified English
Simplified English

Simplified English is a Controlled natural language originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardized subset of English....
, which was originally developed for aerospace
Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding outer space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through Aircraft and Space exploration....
 industry maintenance manuals.

Formal languages


Mathematics
Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
 and computer science
Computer science

Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems....
 use artificial entities called formal languages (including programming language
Programming language

A programming language is a machine-readable artificial language designed to express computations that can be performed by a machine, particularly a computer....
s and markup language
Markup language

A markup language is a set of codes that give instructions regarding the structure of a text or how it is to be displayed. Markup languages have been in use for centuries, and in recent years have been used in computer typesetting and word-processing systems to specify the formatting, layout, structure, and other elements of a document....
s, and some that are more theoretical in nature). These often take the form of character strings, produced by a combination of formal grammar
Formal grammar

In formal language theory, grammars, also called formal grammars or generative grammars, are a formalism used to describe formal languages – i.e....
 and semantics of arbitrary complexity.

Programming languages


A programming language is an extreme case of a formal language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer, to perform specific tasks. Programming languages are defined using syntactic and semantic rules, to determine structure and meaning respectively.

Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for artificial languages that are more limited.

Animal communication


The term "animal language
Animal language

Animal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, most researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language....
s" is often used for non-human languages. Linguists do not consider these to be "language", but describe them as animal communication
Animal communication

Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, sometimes called zoosemiotics has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition....
, because the interaction between animals in such communication is fundamentally different in its underlying principles from human language. Nevertheless, some scholars have tried to disprove this mainstream premise through experiments on training chimpanzees to talk. Karl von Frisch
Karl von Frisch

Karl Ritter von Frisch was an Austrian ethology who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz....
 received the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his proof of the language and dialects of the bees. Current research indicates that signalling codes are the most fundamental precondition for every coordination within and between cells, tissues, organs and organisms of all organismic kingdoms. All of these signalling codes follow combinatorial (syntactic), context-sensitive (pragmatic) and content-specific (semantic) rules. In contrast to linguists, biolinguistics and biosemiotics consider these codes to be real languages.

In several publicized instances, non-human animals have been taught to understand certain features of human language. Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially known as a chimp, is the common name for the two Extant taxon species of ape in the genus Pan where the Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s, gorilla
Gorilla

Gorillas are the largest of the living primates. They are ground-dwelling herbivores that inhabit the forests of Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies....
s, and orangutan
Orangutan

The orangutans are a species of Hominidae. Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and they are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes....
s have been taught hand signs based on American Sign Language
American Sign Language

American Sign Language is the dominant sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the anglophone parts of Canada, and in parts of Mexico....
. The African Grey Parrot
African Grey Parrot

The African Grey Parrot is a medium-sized parrot of the genus Psittacus, endemic to primary and secondary rainforest of West and Central Africa, and is one of the most intelligent birds....
, which possesses the ability to mimic human speech with a high degree of accuracy, is suspected of having sufficient intelligence to comprehend some of the speech it mimics. Most species of parrot
Parrot

File:Ara ararauna -eating -Wilhelma Zoo-8-2rc.jpgParrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genus that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most warm and tropical regions....
, despite expert mimicry, are believed to have no linguistic comprehension at all.

While proponents of animal communication systems have debated levels of semantics
Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word is derived from the Greek language word s??a?t???? , "significant", from s??a??? , "to signify, to indicate" and that from s??a , "sign, mark, token"....
, these systems have not been found to have anything approaching human language syntax
Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing Sentence s in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the Irish syntax"....
.

Lists

Category:Lists of languages
  • Ethnologue
    Ethnologue

    Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christianity linguistics service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles, in their native language....
     - list of languages, locations, population and genetic affiliation
  • List of basic linguistics topics
    List of basic linguistics topics

    Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. Linguistics can be theoretical or applied....
  • List of language academies
  • List of languages
    List of languages

    This list of languages is alphabetical by English name of the language.Ethnologue lists about 7,300 main languages in its language name index and distinguishes about 39,491 alternate language names and dialects....
  • List of official languages
    List of official languages

    Official languages of supra-national institutionsSee List of official languages by institution....


Further reading


See also

  • Adamic language
    Adamic language

    The Adamic language is, according to Abrahamic traditions, the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adamic is typically identified with either the language used by God to address Adam, or the language invented by Adam ....
  • Dialect
    Dialect

    A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
  • Extinct language
    Extinct language

    An extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers .Extinct languages may be contrasted with Language death: no longer spoken as a main language....
  • FOXP2
    FOXP2

    FOXP2 is a gene that is implicated in the Language development, including grammatical competence....
     - gene implicated in cases of specific language impairment (SLI)
  • Great ape language
    Great Ape language

    Research into non-human great ape language has involved teaching gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans to communicate with human beings and with each other using sign language, physical tokens, and lexigrams; see Yerkish....
  • ISO 639
    ISO 639

    ISO 639 is the set of International Organization for Standardization that lists short language code for language names. It was also the name of the original standard, approved in 1967 and withdrawn in 2002....
     - 2- and 3-letter ID codes for languages
  • Language education
    Language education

    Language education includes the teaching and learning of a language. It can include improving a learner's native language; however, it is more commonly used with regard to second language acquisition, that is, the learning of a foreign language or second language, and that is the meaning that is treated in this article....
  • Language policy
    Language policy

    Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to protect and promote regional and ethnic langu...
  • Language reform
    Language reform

    Language reform is a type of language planning by massive change to a language. The usual tools of language reform are simplification and purification....
  • Language school
    Language school

    A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, but not limited to, communicative competence in a foreign language....
  • Linguistic protectionism
  • Metacommunicative competence
    Metacommunicative competence

    Metacommunicative competence is the ability to intervene within difficult conversations and to correct communication problems by utilizing the different ways of practical communication:...
  • Non-verbal communication
  • Official language
    Official language

    An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
  • Origin of language
    Origin of language

    The origin of language, also known as glottogony, is a topic that has attracted considerable attention throughout human history. The use of language is one of the most conspicuous traits that distinguishes Homo sapiens from other species....
  • Philology
    Philology

    Philology, derived from the Greek language considers both morphology and Meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies....
  • Philosophy of language
    Philosophy of language

    Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for Analytic philosophys is concerned with four central problems: the nature of Meaning , language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality....
  • Phonetic transcription
    Phonetic transcription

    Phonetic transcription is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human language. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet ....
  • Proto-language
    Proto-language

    A proto-language is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German language term Ursprache is used instead....
  • Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
    Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

    In linguistics, the Sapir?Whorf hypothesis postulates a systematic relationship between the Grammatical category of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it....
  • Second language
    Second language

    A second language is any language learned after the First language . Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas....
  • Symbolic communication
    Symbolic communication

    Symbolic communication is exchange of messages that change a priori expectation of events. Examples of this are modern communication technology as also exchange of information amongst animals....
  • Symbolic linguistic representation
    Symbolic linguistic representation

    A symbolic linguistic representation is a representation of an utterance that uses symbols to represent linguistic information about the utterance, such as information about phonetics, phonology, morphology , syntax, or semantics....
  • Translation
    Translation

    Translation is the hermeneutics of the Meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an Dynamic and formal equivalence text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language....
  • Universal grammar
    Universal grammar

    Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles of grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans . It attempts to explain language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages....
  • Whistled language
    Whistled language

    Whistled languages use whistling to emulate speech and facilitate communication. A whistled language is a system of whistled communication which allows fluent whistlers to transmit and comprehend a potentially unlimited number of messages over long distances....
  • Word game
    Word game

    Word games and puzzles are generally engaged as a source of Entertainment, but they have been found to serve a very useful and progressive Education purpose as well....
  • Written language
    Written language

    A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken language or sign language languages....


External links