Portal:Language

Introduction

Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of productivity and displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through learning.

Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writing, whistling, signing, or braille. In other words, human language is modality-independent, but written or signed language is the way to inscribe or encode the natural human speech or gestures.

Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, 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 to particular meanings. Oral, manual and tactile 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.

The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Critical examinations of languages, such as philosophy of language, the relationships between language and thought, how words represent experience, etc., have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greek civilization. Thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) have argued that language originated from emotions, while others like Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) have argued that languages originated from rational and logical thought. Twentieth century philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) argued that philosophy is really the study of language itself. Major figures in contemporary linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky. (Full article...)

Outline of linguistics • Index of language articles

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The word Ivrit ("Hebrew") written in the modern Hebrew script (top) and in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet (bottom)

Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival. It is the only Canaanite language still spoken today. It is also one of the only two Northwest Semitic languages with contemporary speakers, the other being Aramaic.

The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh (לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש, lit. 'the holy tongue' or 'the tongue [of] holiness') since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible, but as Yehudit (transl. 'Judean') or Səpaṯ Kəna'an (transl. "the language of Canaan"). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to the language as Ivrit, meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit, meaning Assyrian, which is derived from the name of the alphabet used, in contrast to Ivrit, meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. (Full article...)

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... that all Aboriginal languages in mainland Australia may have descended from a common ancestor spoken around 6,000 years ago?
... that The Seoul Press was an English-language newspaper created to justify Japan's colonial rule of Korea?
... that the Māori-language name for Cave Rock, Sumner—Tuawera—means 'cut down as if by fire'?
... that in 1903, Georg Forchhammer invented a system to help his deaf students see the sounds of spoken Danish?
... that the 11.7 million people of Papua New Guinea speak more than 800 languages?
... that the Colección de Lenguas Indígenas includes the only written records of three languages that have since died out?

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...that linguist Asim Peco is an expert in the language of eastern Herzegovina?
...that three different languages that used to be spoken in Nicaragua are now extinct?
...that Russian is spoken in Israel by about 20% of the total population?
...that the name of the koala derives from the word gula in Dharuk and other Yuin–Kuric languages?

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Latin obscenity is the profane, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin, and its uses. Words deemed obscene were described as obsc(a)ena (obscene, lewd, unfit for public use), or improba (improper, in poor taste, undignified). Documented obscenities occurred rarely in classical Latin literature, limited to certain types of writing such as epigrams, but they are commonly used in the graffiti written on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among the documents of interest in this area is a letter written by Cicero in 45 BC (ad Fam. 9.22) to a friend called Paetus, in which he alludes to a number of obscene words without actually naming them.

Apart from graffiti, the writers who used obscene words most were Catullus and Martial in their shorter poems. Another source is the anonymous Priapeia (see External links below), a collection of 95 epigrams supposedly written to adorn statues of the fertility god Priapus, whose wooden image was customarily set up to protect orchards against thieves. The earlier poems of Horace also contained some obscenities. However, the satirists Persius and Juvenal, although often describing obscene acts, did so without mentioning the obscene words. Medical, especially veterinary, texts also use certain anatomical words that, outside of their technical context, might have been considered obscene. (Full article...)

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The Phoenician alphabet was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Aramaic alphabet, a modified form of Phoenician, was the ancestor of modern Arabic script, while Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Coptic), was a direct successor of Phoenician, though certain letter values were changed to represent vowels.

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Language News

27 February 2026 – Artificial intelligence in government

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rejects a U.S. Department of Defense request to loosen security safeguards on the Claude large language model for potential use in mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. (BBC News) (SRF)

9 February 2026 – Immigration to Sweden

Swedish migration minister Johan Forssell announces the implementation of stricter naturalization requirements from June 6, extending the residency period from five years to eight, imposing a minimum income threshold of 20,000 kr (US$2,225), requiring language and civic knowledge tests, and lengthening waiting times for applicants with criminal records. (Reuters)

1 February 2026 – 68th Annual Grammy Awards

At the 2026 Grammy Awards, Kendrick Lamar wins five awards and surpasses Jay-Z as the most awarded hip-hop artist in Grammy history, while Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos becomes the first Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year. (AP) (The Hollywood Reporter)

13 December 2025 – Middle Eastern crisis

An attacker identified by the United States Central Command as a member of ISIL opens fire on a joint Syrian and American convoy in Palmyra, killing two U.S. service members and one American civilian interpreter and injuring three others, before being killed by return fire. (SANA via Al Jazeera)

29 September 2025 – Hungary–Ukraine relations, Telecommunications in Hungary