LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE
1. A human system of COMMUNICATION which uses structured vocal sounds and can be embodied in other media such as writing, print, and physical signs. Most linguists currently regard the faculty of language as a defining characteristic of being human.

2. A particular instance of this system, such as ARABIC, FRENCH, English, Kwakiutl, SANSKRIT, SWAHILI.

3. Any more or less systematic and extensive means of communication, such as animal cries and movements, GESTURE, CODE (including in COMPUTING), and FIGURATIVE USAGE: the language of dreams; machine language.

4. The usage of a special group, such as scientific and technical REGISTERS, JOURNALESE, SLANG.

5. Usage that is socially suspect, often with a modifier, as in bad/foul/strong language, but sometimes alone, as in Mind your language!

Students of language

Language is the concern of LINGUISTICS, the systematic or scientific study of language, and those who practise it are (scientific) linguists. They do not, however, monopolize the study of language and languages, which takes various other forms. Many literary humanists, in particular, feel that objective analysis cannot replace the subjective insights of those steeped in LITERATURE; some deny or doubt the usefulness of linguistics.

The nature and properties of language

Language is a system in which basic units are assembled according to a complex set of rules. There is a major division between natural language (traditional human use of languages) and artificial language (devised languages like ESPERANTO; computer languages like BASIC). Human communication is multimodal, in that speech, gesture, writing, touch, etc., all interact. Language as such has the following properties:

1. A vocal-auditory channel.

This channel is often referred to as the phonic medium, that is, sounds produced by the vocal organs, which are then received by the ear.

2. Convertibility to other media.

Such media are writing and print (the graphic medium), sign language (a visual medium), and Braille (a tactile medium).

3. Use of arbitrary symbols.

There is no link in most words between the form used and the meaning expressed.

4. Duality or double articulation.

Language is made up of two layers: a layer of sounds, in which the units (phonemes) do not normally have meaning, but combine into another layer which does.

5. Interdependence.

Language can be regarded as an integrated structure in which the role of every item is defined by that of all the other items in the same system.

6. Open-endedness

(productivity, creativity). The number of utterances which can be produced is indefinitely large.

7. Displacement.

Language is used to refer to events removed in time and place, and to situations which never existed, as in lying and telling imaginative stories.

8. Continual change.

Language is always changing, and there is no evidence that overall progress or decay results from such change.

9. Turn-taking.

Spoken language involves structured interchanges in which people take it in turns to talk.

In addition to these features, there has in recent years been a search for universal characteristics which are somewhat more abstract. The difficulty of finding such universals has led to renewed interest in assigning languages to different types.

Language as a mental phenomenon

Language appears to be behaviour that is controlled by maturation, in that it is ‘programmed’ to emerge at appropriate stages in an individual's development, as long as the nervous system and the environment are normal. Some language disorders are environmental; others may be inherited. Language ability is believed by most linguists to be genetically in-built, at least in its broad outlines, though the nature and extent of the innate contribution is controversial. The mental aspects of language are the concern of PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, which deals primarily with the acquisition, comprehension, and production of language. Some theoretical linguists also attempt to produce models of the human language faculty, though many of these are controversial. The link between language and thought is another contentious issue. Few linguists accept the claim that language determines thought, but many consider that language influences the way a person thinks.

Language as a social phenomenon

The social aspects of language are the concern primarily of SOCIOLINGUISTICS and anthropological linguistics. There have been various attempts to define the sociocultural notion of ‘a language’. Political and geographical boundaries do not necessarily coincide with linguistic boundaries, nor do ethnic names: many Belgians, for example, speak FRENCH. Different varieties of the ‘same’ language may be mutually incomprehensible even within the same country: in England, a COCKNEY accent may not be understood by someone with a GEORDIE accent. Linguists usually therefore regard a language as being defined by those who speak it: the many varieties of English used around the world are all defined as English because this is the language the speakers agree that they are speaking. A variety, however, may be regarded by its speakers as a distinct language if there is a strong literary, religious, or other tradition, as in the case of SCOTS.

Variation in a language

Within a language, there are subdivisions traditionally known as DIALECTS, increasingly as VARIETIES, which are most commonly geographical but may also be social. A dialect is more than a simple difference of pronunciation. In the British Isles, many people speak the same dialect of English, but with different accents. Sometimes, one dialect becomes socially prestigious and is adopted as the norm; it is then usually referred to as the ‘STANDARD’ LANGUAGE. Social variation in language may be due to social class, ethnic origin, age, and/or sex, and within these, to the level of formality employed at any time. Sometimes this variation remains stable, but is often the forerunner of a change. LANGUAGE SHIFT usually appears as variation within a community, one variant increasing in frequency of use and in its distribution.

Languages in contact

The use of more than one language is common, particularly in frontier regions and in polyglot countries. Also common is the use of a restricted form of a language for a specialized purpose, such as AIRSPEAK, the restricted variety of English used worldwide for air traffic control. Occasionally, formal and informal varieties of the same language may differ to such an extent that they are used virtually as different languages, as until recently in modern Greece. Sometimes, contact between languages may give rise to a system so different from the original(s) that it can no longer be regarded as the same language. A PIDGIN is a limited language system, with rules of its own, used for communication between people with no common language. A CREOLE is a pidgin which has become the first language of a community. A mixed language is one in which elements from two or more languages have become so interwined that it is unclear which is the ‘basic’ language.

The world's languages

There is no agreed figure for the number of languages spoken in the world today. Estimates cluster around 4,000–5,000, with a great deal of variation on either side. Some of the reasons for this uncertainty are: (1) From a linguistic point of view, some parts of the world remain unexplored, including areas where it is known that many languages are in use, such as New Guinea and Central Africa. The rate at which languages are dying, in the face of Western exploration, as in Amazonia, is an unknown factor. (2) Only after a great deal of linguistic enquiry does it become apparent whether a newly encountered community turns out to be speaking a new language or a dialect of an already ‘discovered’ language. (3) In some areas, it is not easy to decide on the status of what is spoken. Although normally those who can understand each other's spontaneous speech would be said to be speaking the same language, even if there were noticeable differences (as with AmE and BrE, or Cockney and WEST COUNTRY in England), in some places such relatively minor variants are considered important indicators of social, cultural, or political differences. In such cases, it proves necessary to talk of different languages, not different dialects. This has happened, for example, with Flemish and DUTCH, HINDI and URDU, and Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. In these circumstances, a precise statement about the number of the world's languages is impossible to obtain. Similar differences are encountered when making estimates about the number of speakers of particular languages.

Language and linguistics

See ACROLECT, AGGLUTINATING, ANALYTIC, ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE, BABY TALK, BASILECT, BILINGUALISM, CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES, COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE, CREOLE, DIALECT, DIGLOSSIA, FUSIONAL, GESTURE, INTERLANGUAGE, LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE, LANGUAGE CHANGE, LANGUAGE FAMILY, LANGUAGE LEARNING, LANGUAGE PLANNING, LANGUAGE SHIFT, LANGUAGE TEACHING, LEVEL OF LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS, MESOLECT, MULTILINGUALISM, NATURAL LANGUAGE, PHILOLOGY, PIDGIN, PRIVATE LANGUAGE, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, RESTRICTED LANGUAGE, SOCIOLECT, SOCIOLINGUISTICS, SPEECH, STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS, TONGUE, TRANSLATION.

Language groups

See ARYAN, BANTU, CELTIC LANGUAGES, ENGLISH LANGUAGES, GERMANIC LANGUAGES, INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, ROMANCE LANGUAGES, SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES, SLAVONIC/SLAVIC LANGUAGES, SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGES.

Individual languages

See AFRIKAANS, ANGLO-NORMAN, ANGLO-SAXON, ARABIC, CELTIC, CHINA, CORNISH, CUMBRIC, DANISH, DUTCH, EARLY MODERN ENGLISH, ENGLISH, FILIPINO, FRENCH, FRISIAN, GAELIC, GERMAN, GOTHIC, GREEK, HAWAIIAN, HEBREW, HINDI, HINDIURDU, INGLIS, IRISH GAELIC, ITALIAN, JAPAN, KOREA, LATIN, LAW FRENCH, LOWLAND SCOTS, MALTA, MAORI, MIDDLE ENGLISH, MODERN ENGLISH, NORMAN FRENCH, NORN, NORSE, OLD ENGLISH, POLARI, PORTUGUESE, ROMANI, RUSSIAN, SABIR, SANSKRIT, SAXON, SCOTS, SCOTTISH GAELIC, SHELTA, SPANISH, SWAHILI, TAGALOG, URDU, WELSH, YIDDISH.