Lan"guage (?), n. [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.
&fist; 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.
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 term for language, esp. for
spoken language; as, the English tongue. Idiom denotes
the forms of construction peculiar to a particular language;
dialects are varieties of expression which spring up in
different parts of a country among people speaking substantially the
same language.
Lan"guage, 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.
