Lăn'guage1, n.
(45), n. [O. Eng. langage, Fr. langage, Pr. lengatge, lenguatge, Sp. lenguaje, Pg. linguagem, It. linguaggio, L. Lat. linguagium, linguagium, from Lat. lingua, the tongue, and speech, language, Fr. langue, Pr. & Sp. lengua, Pg. língua, lingoa, It. lingua.]
Sense 1. Human speech; the expression of ideas by the voice; sounds, expressive of thought, articulated by the organs of the throat and mouth.
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 by letters, marks, or characters, which form words.
Sense 2. The expression of ideas by writing, or any other instrumentality.
Language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. Milton.
Sense 3. The forms of speech or the methods of expressing ideas peculiar to a particular nation.
Sense 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.
Sense 5. The inarticulate sounds by which irrational animals express their feelings or their wants.
Sense 6. The suggestion by objects of ideas associated therewith; as, the language of flowers.
Sense 7. A nation, as distinguished by their speech.
All the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image. Dan. iii. 7.
Synonyms—Speech; tongue; idiom; dialect; phraseology; diction.—LANGUAGE, SPEECH, TONGUE, IDIOM, DIALECT. Language is generic, denoting any mode of conveying ideas; as, the language of the deaf and dumb, &c.; speech is the language of articulate sounds; tongue is the Anglo-Saxon term for the language of a particular people; as, the English tongue. Idiom denotes the forms of construction peculiar to a language; dialects are varieties of expression which spring up in different parts of a country, or in different professions, &c.