language

pronunciation

How to pronounce language in British English: UK [ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ] word uk audio image

How to pronounce language in American English: US [ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ] word us audio image

Noun:

a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols
(language) communication by word of mouth
a system of words used in a particular discipline
the cognitive processes involved in producing and understanding linguistic communication
the mental faculty or power of vocal communication
the text of a popular song or musical-comedy number

Word Origin

language: language: [13] Like English tongue, Latin lingua ‘tongue’ was used figuratively for ‘language’; from it English gets linguist [16] and linguistic [19]. In the Vulgar Latin spoken by the inhabitants of Gaul, the derivative *linguāticum emerged, and this became in due course Old French langage, source of English language. (The u in the English word, which goes back to the end of the 13th century, is due to association with French langue ‘tongue’.)=> linguistic

language (n.): late 13c., langage "words, what is said, conversation, talk," from Old French langage (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *linguaticum, from Latin lingua "tongue," also "speech, language" (see lingual). The form with -u- developed in Anglo-French. Meaning "a language" is from c. 1300, also used in Middle English of dialects: Mercii, þat beeþ men of myddel Engelond[,] vnderstondeþ bettre þe side langages, norþerne and souþerne, þan norþerne and souþerne vnderstondeþ eiþer oþer. [John of Trevisa, translation of Bartholomew de Glanville's "De proprietatibus rerum," 1398] In oþir inglis was it drawin, And turnid ic haue it til ur awin Language of the norþin lede, Þat can na noþir inglis rede. ["Cursor Mundi," early 14c.] Language barrier attested from 1933.