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.
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Famous quotes containing the word definitions:
“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)
“Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds?
There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
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—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)