What is language?

Language Definitions

Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Any estimate of the precise number of languages in the world depends on a partly arbitrary distinction between languages and dialects. However, estimates vary between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in number. Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli, for example, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is because human language is modality-independent. When used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs with particular meanings. Oral and sign languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances.

   A language is a medium of communication which is must be meaning full and follow a    systematic way for talk and write by people

Language from different perspectives:

•         Divine: Language is God’s gift to mankind; God gave Adam the power to name all things.

•         Literary: “Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquest” 

          ---- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

•         Philosophical: “Language is the outward manifestation of human spirit”

         ----- Humboldt

•         Social: Language is a system of verbal and sometimes written representations that are culturally specific and convey meaning about the world.

•         Anthropological: Language a primary means of communication which is transmitted through learning, as part of enculturation.


so, A language is a medium of communication which is must be meaning full and follow a    systematic way for talk and write by people.