Definitions
The English word "language" derives ultimately from Indo-European dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s "tongue, speech, language" through Latin lingua, "language, tongue", and Old French langage "language". The word is sometimes used to refer to codes, ciphers and other kinds of artificially constructed communication systems such as those used for computer programming. A language in this sense is a system of signs for encoding and decoding information. This article is specifically about the properties of natural human language as it is studied in the discipline of linguistics.
As an object of linguistic study "language" has two primary meanings: language as an abstract concept, and "a language" (a specific linguistic system, e.g. "French"). The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who defined the modern discipline of linguistics, first explicitly formulated the distinction, using the French word langage for language as a concept, and langue as a specific instance of a language system, and parole for the concrete usage of speech in a particular language.
When speaking of language as a general concept, some different definitions can be used that stress different aspects of the phenomenon. These definitions also entail different approaches and understandings of language, and they inform different and often incompatible schools of linguistic theory.
Read more about this topic: Language
Famous quotes containing the word definitions:
“The loosening, for some people, of rigid role definitions for men and women has shown that dads can be great at calming babies—if they take the time and make the effort to learn how. It’s that time and effort that not only teaches the dad how to calm the babies, but also turns him into a parent, just as the time and effort the mother puts into the babies turns her into a parent.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)
“What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)