Language

Language is defined variously, Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated: “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” The U.S. linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.” Any succinct definition of language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a number of questions. A number of considerations enter into a proper understanding of language as a subject:

Every physiologically and mentally normal person acquires in childhood the ability to make use, as both speaker and hearer, of system of vocal communication that comprises a restricted set of noises resulting from movements of certain organs within his throat and mouth. By means of these he is able to impart information, to express feelings and emotions, to influence the activities of others, and to comport himself with varying degrees of friendliness or hostility toward persons who make use of substantially the same set of noises.

Different systems of vocal communication constitute different languages; the degree of difference needed to establish a different language cannot be stated exactly. No two people speak exactly alike; hence, one is able to recognize the voices of friends over the telephone and to keep distinct a number of unseen speakers in a radio broadcast. Yet, clearly, no one would say that they speak different languages. Generally, systems of vocal communication are recognized as different languages if they cannot be understood without specific learning by both parties, though the precise limits of mutual intelligibility are hard to draw and belong on a scale rather than on either side of a definite dividing line. Substantially different systems of communication that may impede but do not prevent mutual comprehension are called dialects of a language. In order to describe in detail the actual different speech patterns of individuals, the term idiolect, meaning the speech habits of a single person, has been coined.

Normally, people acquire a single language initially—their first language, or mother tongue, the language spoken by their parents or by those with whom they are brought up from infancy. Subsequent “second” languages are learned to different degrees of competence under various conditions, but the majority of the world's population remains largely monolingual. Complete mastery of two languages is designated as bilingualism; in a few special cases—such as upbringing by parents speaking different languages at home—speakers grow up as bilinguals, but ordinarily the learning, to any extent, of a second or other language is an activity superimposed on the prior mastery of one's first language and is a different process intellectually.
Language, as described above, is species-specific to man. Other members of the animal kingdom have the ability to communicate, through vocal noises or by other means, but the most important single feature characterizing human language (that is, every individual language), against every known mode of animal communication, is its infinite productivity and creativity. Human beings are unrestricted in what they can talk about; no area of experience is accepted as necessarily incommunicable, though it may be necessary to adapt one's language in order to cope with new discoveries or new modes of thought.

Animal communication systems are by contrast very tightly circumscribed in what may be communicated. Indeed, displaced reference, the ability to communicate about things outside immediate temporal and spatial contiguity, which is fundamental to speech, is found elsewhere only in the so-called language of bees. Bees are able, by carrying out various conventionalized movements (referred to as bee dances) in or near the hive, to indicate to others the locations and strengths of nectar sources. But nectar sources are the only known theme of this communication system. Surprisingly, however, this system, nearest to human language in function, belongs to a species remote from man in the animal kingdom and is achieved by very different physiological activities from those involved in speech. On the other hand, the animal performance superficially most like human speech, the mimicry of parrots and of some other birds that have been kept in the company of humans, is wholly derivative and serves no independent communicative function. Man's nearest relatives among the primates, though possessing a vocal physiology very similar to that of humans, have not developed anything like a spoken language.

Language interacts with every other aspect of human life in society, and it can be understood only if it is considered in relation to society. This article attempts to survey language (both spoken and written) in this light and to consider its various functions and the purposes it can and has been made to serve. Because each language is both a working system of communication in the period and in the community wherein it is used and also the product of its past history and the source of its future development, any account of language must consider it from both these points of view.

The science of language is known as linguistics. It includes what are generally distinguished as descriptive linguistics and historical linguistics. Linguistics is now a highly technical subject; it embraces, both descriptively and historically, such major divisions as phonetics, grammar, and semantics, dealing in detail with these various aspects of language.