Auxiliary Language

The term auxiliary language is a language which is not the primary or native language of a community. It may refer to:

  • an international auxiliary language, a planned, artificial language constructed for international communication, such as Esperanto
  • a local minority language which has official recognition
  • a liturgical language, such as Latin, Sanskrit, or Old Church Slavonic, used in religious services
  • a professional, trade, or otherwise secret language such as Kallawaya among Andean herbalists
  • an initiation language such as Damin in Australia
  • a language of ethnic identity such as Eskayan in the Philippines

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    “Now stamp the Lord’s Prayer on a grain of rice,
    A Bible-leaved of all the written woods
    Strip to this tree: a rocking alphabet,
    Genesis in the root, the scarecrow word,
    And one light’s language in the book of trees.”
    —Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)