Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.

Characteristics Of Language
Definitions of language
Many definitions of language have been proposed. 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 American 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. The first, for example, puts excessive weight on “thought,” and the second uses “arbitrary” in a specialized, though legitimate, way.

Every physiologically and mentally typical person acquires in childhood the ability to make use, as both sender and receiver, of a system of communication that comprises a circumscribed set of symbols (e.g., sounds, gestures, or written or typed characters). In spoken language, this symbol set consists of noises resulting from movements of certain organs within the throat and mouth. In signed languages, these symbols may be hand or body movements, gestures, or facial expressions. By means of these symbols, people are able to impart information, to express feelings and emotions, to influence the activities of others, and to comport themselves with varying degrees of friendliness or hostility toward persons who make use of substantially the same set of symbols.

Different systems of 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 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 language patterns of individuals, the term idiolect, meaning the habits of expression of a single person, has been coined.

Typically, people acquire a single language initially—their first language, or native tongue, the language used by those with whom, or by whom, they are brought up from infancy. Subsequent “second” languages are learned to different degrees of competence under various conditions. Complete mastery of two languages is designated as bilingualism; in many cases—such as upbringing by parents using different languages at home or being raised within a multilingual community—children grow up as bilinguals. In traditionally monolingual cultures, 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.

In most accounts, the primary purpose of language is to facilitate communication, in the sense of transmission of information from one person to another. However, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studies have drawn attention to a range of other functions for language. Among these is the use of language to express a national or local identity (a common source of conflict in situations of multiethnicity around the world, such as in Belgium, India, and Quebec). Also important are the “ludic” (playful) function of language—encountered in such phenomena as puns, riddles, and crossword puzzles—and the range of functions seen in imaginative or symbolic contexts, such as poetry, drama, and religious expression.

Language interacts with every 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 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 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 (including syntax and morphology), semantics, and pragmatics, dealing in detail with these various aspects of language.

Historical attitudes toward language
As is evident from the discussion above, human life in its present form would be impossible and inconceivable without the use of language. People have long recognized the force and significance of language. Naming—applying a word to pick out and refer to a fellow human being, an animal, an object, or a class of such beings or objects—is only one part of the use of language, but it is an essential and prominent part. In many cultures people have seen in the ability to name a means to control or to possess; this explains the reluctance, in some communities, with which names are revealed to strangers and the taboo restrictions found in several parts of the world on using the names of persons recently dead. Such restrictions echo widespread and perhaps universal taboos on naming directly things considered obscene, blasphemous, or very fearful.

Ways of studying language
Languages are immensely complicated structures. One soon realizes how complicated any language is when trying to learn it as a second language. If one tries to frame an exhaustive description of all the rules embodied in one’s language—the rules by means of which a native user is able to produce and understand an infinite number of correct well-formed sentences—one can easily appreciate the complexity of the knowledge that a child acquires while mastering a native vernacular. The descriptions of languages written so far are in most cases excellent as far as they go, but they still omit more than they contain of an explicit account of native users’ competence in their language, whether that language is English, Swahili, or Japanese Sign Language (nihon shuwa). Likewise, ongoing work in the study of language has underscored just how much effort is needed to bring palpable fact within systematic statement.

It has already been pointed out that no two persons speak exactly alike, and, within the area of all but the smallest speech communities (groups of people speaking the same language), there are subdivisions of recognizably different types of language, called can be used with reasonable agreement. One speaks of different dialects of English (Southern British English, Northern British English, Scottish English, Midwest American English, New England American English, Australian English, and so on, with, of course, many more delicately distinguished subdialects within these very general categories), but no one would speak of Welsh and English or of Irish and English as dialects of a single language, although they are spoken within the same areas and often by people living in the same villages as each other.

Nonverbal language
Sign language
Signed languages and gesture languages have the same linguistic components as spoken languages. Although they do not involve speech sounds, they have their own grammar, syntax, and morphology. Sign language is most often used in deaf communities, although it is also sometimes used by hearing people when they are unable to communicate verbally. Although some sign languages are related to spoken languages, often within a geographic community (such as American [spoken] English and American Sign Language), they are not necessarily direct translations. The scope, history, and unique linguistic and sociological characteristics of sign language are too broad to be fully discussed here; for further treatment of the subject, see sign language.

When individuals speak, they do not normally confine themselves to the mere emission of speech sounds. Because speaking usually involves at least two parties in sight of each other, a great deal of meaninggestures. The contribution of bodily gestures to the total meaning of a conversation is in part culturally determined and differs in different communities. Just how important these visual symbols are may be seen when one considers how much less effective phone conversation is as compared with conversation face to face. Again, the part played in emotional contact and in the expression of feelings by facial expressions and tone of , quite independently of the words used, has been shown in tests in which subjects have been asked to react to sentences that appear as friendly and inviting when read but are spoken angrily and, conversely, to sentences that appear as hostile but are spoken with friendly facial expressions. It is found that it is the visual accompaniments and tone of voice that elicit the main emotional response. A good deal of sarcasm exploits these contrasts, which are sometimes described under the heading of paralanguage.

Just as there are paralinguistic activities such as facial expressions and bodily gestures integrated vocally produced noises that cannot be regarded as part of any language, though they help in communication and in the expression of feeling. These include laughter, shouts and screams of joy, fear, pain, and so forth, and conventional expressions of disgust, triumph, and so on, traditionally spelled ugh!, ha ha!, and so on, in English. These sorts of nonlexical expressions are much more similar in form and meaning throughout humankind as a whole, in contrast to the great of languages. They are also far less arbitrary than most of the lexical components of language, and they are much nearer the cries of animals produced under similar circumstances and serve similar expressive and communicative purposes (as far as animals’ intentions and behaviour can be understood). Some people have tried to trace the origin of language itself to them.