language

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

System of communication

Nouns

1. language, tongue, lingo, vernacular, mother tongue, protolanguage; living or dead language; idiom, parlance, phraseology; wording; dialect, patois, cant, jargon, lingo, jive, flash, slang, argot; Black Talk, African American English, ebonics, geechee; regionalism, provincialism; archaism; buzzword, commercialese; coinage, neologism, nonce word, derivation, portmanteau word, etymon, ghost word, loan translation, loanword; cognate, paronym, combining form; artificial language, programming or computer language (see computers); pig or dog Latin, pidgin English, bêche-de-mer, creole, acrolect, basilect; Esperanto, Ito, Basic English, lingua franca; thieves' Latin; academese, journalese; double Dutch (see unmeaningness); sign language, finger spelling, manual alphabet; language pollution, language police. Slang, jive, gobbledygook. See meaning, communication.

2.

a. Indo-European; Indo-Iranian, Indic, Indo-Aryan, Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pahari, Kashmiri, Dard, Gujarati, Marathi, Sinhalese, Hindi, Urdu, Bihari, Rajasthani, Romany; Iranian, Avestan, Persian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, Scythian, Tajik, Kurdish, Baluchi, Pashto, Ossetic; Anatolian, Hittite, Luwian, Lycian, Lydian; Armenian; Hellenic, Greek; Tocharian; Italic, Latin, Romance language, Spanish, Ladino, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Cajun, Quebecois, Provençal, Italian, Sardinian, RhaetoRomanic, Rumanian, Faliscan, Umbrian, Oscan; Celtic, Goidelic, Irish, Manx, Scots Gaelic, Brythonic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Gaulish; Germanic, [Old, Middle, or Modern] English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Anglo-Saxon, German, Yiddish, Norse, Icelandic, Faeroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Gothic; Albanian; Baltic, Prussian, Latvian, Lithuanian; Slavic, Polish, Czech, Sorbian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Russian, Slavonic, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene.

b. Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Karen, Burmese, Tibetan, Chinese, Mandarin; Tai, Thai, Lao, Shan.

c. Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian.

d. Uralic; Finnic, Finnish, Estonian; Ugric, Hungarian.

e. Afro-Asiatic, Hamito-Semitic; Semitic, Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Phoenician; Egyptian; Berber, Tuareg, Kabyle; Cushitic, Somali, Oromo; Chadic. Hausa.

f. Niger-Kordofanian, Niger-Congo, Kordofanian; Kwa, Ewe, Ibo, Yoruba, Bantu, Kikuyu, Swahili, Tswana, Zulu; Mande, Mende, Malinke, Bambara, Kpelle; Gur, Mossi.

g. Ainu.

h. Munda.

i. Dravidian; Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Brahui.

j. Altaic; Turkic, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kirghiuz, Yakut; Mongolian, Mongolic, Buriat, Khalkha; Tungusic, Manchu, Evenki, Even, Nanay.

k. Basque.

3. (study of language) [applied, comparative, computational, descriptive, structural, or anthropological] linguistics, metalinguistics, grammar, lexicography, lexicology, etymology, morphology, dialectology, pragmatics; semantics, general semantics, semiotics, meaning, denotation, connotation; writing, literature, philology, classics, letters, belles-lettres, humanities, Muses; gift of tongues; dictionary, thesaurus, word treasury, glossary, lexicon, vocabulary.

4. word, phone, phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, syllable, stem, root; phrase, sentence; homograph, homonym, homophone, synonym; syntax, idiom; utterance, remark, statement, pronouncement, observation, comment, obiter dictum; question, inquiry; answer, reply; aside, apostrophe, rhetorical question.

5. linguist, philologist, grammarian; semanticist, etymologist, lexicographer.

Adjectives — lingual, linguistic, lexical; verbal, idiomatic, colloquial, dialectic, vernacular, provincial; polyglot; polysynthetic; literary; demotic.

Quotations — Language is fossil poetry (Emerson), Language is the dress of thought (Samuel Johnson), A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words (Samuel Butler), Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work (Carl Sandburg).

Related categories, grammar, word, writing.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [A means of communication]

Syn. speech, dialect, voice, utterance, expression, vocalization, phonation, native tongue, mother tongue, articulation, meta-language, object language, sense-datum language, thing-language, physical language; language of diplomacy, language of chemistry, language of flowers, etc.; accent, word, sign, signal, pantomime, gesture, facial gesture, vocabulary, diction, idiom, local speech, broken English, pidgin English, lingo, brogue, polyglot, patois, vernacular, lingua franca, trade language, jargon, gibberish, debased speech, inscription, picture writing, hieroglyphics, cuneiform, printing, writing, poetry, prose, song, style, phraseology, lingo*; see also communication 1 , conversation , speech 2 .

2. [The study of language, sense 1]

Syn. morphology, phonology, phonemics, morphemics, morphophonemics, phonics, phonetics, semantics, semasiology, criticism, letters, linguistic studies, history of language, etymology, dialectology, linguistic geography, anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, lexicostatistics, glottochronology, structural linguistics, descriptive linguistics, taxonomic linguistics, historical linguistics, diachronic linguistics, comparative linguistics, synchronic linguistics, contrastive grammar, descriptive grammar, prescriptive grammar, phrase-structure grammar, PS grammar, generative grammar, immediate-constituent grammar, IC grammar, transformational grammar, tagmemics, stratificational grammar, glossematics, Prague school of linguistics, London school of linguistics, Firthian school of linguistics; see also anthropology , etymology , grammar , linguistics , literature 1 .

Types of languages include: synthetic, inflectional, analytic, isoLating, distributive, incorporating, symbolic, fusional, polytonic, agglutinative, computer, artificial, polysynthetic. Families of language include: Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Altaic, CaucAsian, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, Khoisan, Malayo-Polynesian, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Kadai, Eskimo-Aleut, Athabaskan, Algonquian, Mosan, Iroquoian, Natchez-Muskogean, Siouan, Penutian, Hokan, Uto-Aztecan, Mayan. Indo-European languages include --- Greek: Modern Greek; Celtic: Breton, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic; Italic: Latin, Romanian, Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic, French, Provençal, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese; Germanic: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Modern High German, Yiddish, Afrikaans, Dutch, Flemish, Modern Low German, Frisian, English; Slavic: Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Ukrainian, Russian; Baltic: Latvian, Lithuanian; Iranian: Persian, Pashto; Indo-Aryan: Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Romany, Dard. Other EurAsian languages include --- Uralic: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Samoyed; Altaic: Turkish, Mongolian; Georgian; AbkhAsian, Kabardian, Chechen; Basque; Etruscan. African and Asian languages include --- Afro-Asiatic or Hamito-Semitic: Akkadian, Assyro-Babylonian, Aramaic, Syriac, Phoenician, Talmudic, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Egyptian, Coptic, Tuareg, Somali, Hausa; Sumerian; Niger-Congo: Wolof, Mande, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo, Efik, Tiv, Swahili, Kikuyu, Rwanda, Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Venda; Nilo-Saharan: Songhai, Kanuri, Nilotic, Dinka, Nuer, Masai; Khoisan: Sandawe, Hatsa, Bushman-Hottentot. Asian and Malayo-Polynesian languages include --- Japanese, Ryukyu; Korean; Sino-Tibetan: Burmese, Tibetan, Mandarin, Cantonese; Kadai: Thai, Siamese, Laotian, Lao; Miao-Yao; Malayo-Polynesian: Malay, Indonesian, Javanese, Balinese, Tagalog, Filipino, Malagasy, Micronesian, Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan, Maori, Fijian; Papuan, Australian; Tasmanian; Dravidian: Telegu, Tamil, Kanerese, Kannada, Malayalam; Austro-Asiatic: Santali, Palaung, Mon-Khmer, Vietnamese. North, Central, and South American languages include --- Algonquian: Massachusetts, Delaware, Mohegan, Penobscot, Pasamaquoddy, Fox-Sauk-Kickapoo, Cree, Menomini, Shawnee, Blackfoot, Arapaho, Cheyenne; Wiyot, Yurok; Kutenai; Salishan: Tillamook, Lillooet; Wakashan: Nootka, Kwakiutl; Muskogean: Creek, Choctaw-Chickasaw, Seminole; Natchez, Chitimacha; Iroquoian: Cherokee, Huron, Wayondot, Erie, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Susquehanna, Conestoga; Siouan: Biloxi, Dakota, Mandan, Winnebago, Hidatsa, Crow; Caddoan: Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee; Yuchi; Aleut, Eskimo; Penutian: Tsimshian, Maidu, Miwok, Klamath-Modoc; Zuni; Hokan: Karok, Shasta, Washo, Pomo; Subtiaba-Tlapanec, Tequistlatec, Jicaque; Comecrudo, Tonkawa; Mayan: Kekchi, Quiche, Tseltal-Tsotzil, Tojolabal, Yucatec; Totonac; Mixe, Zoque, Vera Cruz; Huave; Zapotec, Chatino; Mixtec; Pueblo, Popoluca; Otomi, Pame; Tarascan; Uto-Aztecan: Tubatulabal, Luiseño, Tepehuan, Pima-Papago, Hopi, Huichol, Nahuatl, Aztec, Northern Paiute, Paviotso, Mono, Shoshoni-Comanche, Southern Paiute-Ute, Chemehuevi; Kiowa-Tanoan; Keresan; Na-Dené : Haida, Tlingit, Athabaskan, Chipewyan, Apachean, Navaho, Hupa; Yukian; Quechua; Aymara; Araucanian.

• speak the same language,

Syn. understand one another, communicate, get along; see agree .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

verbalization, vocalization, communication, linguistics, speech, parlance, tongue, expression, articulation, wording, vernacular, vocabulary, idiom, idiolect, phraseology, prose, lingo, jargon, cant, slang, slanguage, dialect, diction, colloquialism, localism, Americanism, syntax. ''A man's language is an unerring index of his nature.''—Laurence Binyon. ''The armory of the human mind.''—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ''Man's deadliest weapon.''—Arthur Koestler. ''A city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.''— Ralph Waldo Emerson. ''A series of squeaks.''—Alfred North Whitehead.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. A system of terms used by a people sharing a history and culture: dialect, speech, tongue, vernacular. Linguistics: langue. See WORDS. 2. Specialized expressions indigenous to a particular field, subject, trade, or subculture: argot, cant2, dialect, idiom, jargon, lexicon, lingo, patois, terminology, vernacular, vocabulary. See WORDS.