Language, n.
Etymology: [OE. langage, F. langage, fr. L. lingua the tongue, hence speech, language; akin to E. tongue. See Tongue, cf. Lingual.]
1. Any means of conveying or communicating ideas; specifically, human speech; the expression of ideas by the voice; sounds, expressive of thought, articulated by the organs of the throat and mouth.
Note: Language consists in the oral utterance of sounds which usage has made the representatives of ideas. When two or more persons customarily annex the same sounds to the same ideas, the expression of these sounds by one person communicates his ideas to another. This is the primary sense of language, the use of which is to communicate the thoughts of one person to another through the organs of hearing. Articulate sounds are represented to the eye by letters, marks, or characters, which form words.
2. The expression of ideas by writing, or any other instrumentality.
3. The forms of speech, or the methods of expressing ideas, peculiar to a particular nation.
6 more senses
4. The characteristic mode of arranging words, peculiar to an individual speaker or writer; manner of expression; style. Others for language all their care express. Pope.
5. The inarticulate sounds by which animals inferior to man express their feelings or their wants.
6. The suggestion, by objects, actions, or conditions, of ideas associated therewith; as, the language of flowers. There was . . . language in their very gesture. Shak.
7. The vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or department of knowledge; as, medical language; the language of chemistry or theology.
8. A race, as distinguished by its speech. [R.] All the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image. Dan. iii. 7. Language master, a teacher of languages.[Obs.]
Syn. -- Speech; tongue; idiom; dialect; phraseology; diction; discourse; conversation; talk. -- Language, Speech, Tongue, Idiom, Dialect. Language is generic, denoting, in its most extended use, any mode of conveying ideas; speech is the language of articulate sounds; tongue is the Anglo- Saxon tern for language, esp. for spoken language; as, the English tongue. Idiom denotes the forms of construction peculiar to a particular language; dialects are varieties if expression which spring up in different parts of a country among people speaking substantially the same language.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Language, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Languaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Languaging.]
To communicate by language; to express in language. Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense. Fuller.
Shades of meaning
Language (F. langage < L. lingua, the tongue) signified originally expression of thought by spoken words, but now in its widest sense it signifies expression of thought by any means; as, the language of the eyes, the language of flowers. As regards the use of words, language in its broadest sense denotes all the uttered sounds and their combinations into words and sentences that human beings employ for the communication of thought, and, in a more limited sense, the words or combinations forming a means of communication among the members of a single nation, people, or race. Speech involves always the power of articulate utterance; we can speak of the language of animals, but not of their speech. A tongue is the speech or language of some one people, country, or race. A dialect is a special mode of speaking a language peculiar to some locality or class, not recognized as in accordance with the best usage; a barbarism is a perversion of a language by ignorant foreigners, or some usage akin to that. Idiom refers to the construction of phrases and sentences, and the way of forming or using words; it is the peculiar mold in which each language casts its thought. The great difficulty of translation is to give the thought expressed in one language in the idiom of another. A dialect may be used by the highest as well as the lowest within its range; a patois is distinctly illiterate, belonging to the lower classes; those who speak a patois understand the cultured form of their own language, but speak only the degraded form, as in the case of the Italian lazzaroni or the former negro slaves in the United States. Vernacular, from the Latin, has the same general sense as the Saxon mother tongue, of one's native language, or that of a people; as, the Scriptures were translated into the vernacular. Compare diction.