different between accent vs language

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English accent, from Middle French accent, from Old French acent, from Latin accentus, past participle of accin? (“sing to, sing along”). The word accent had been borrowed into Old English already, but was lost and reborrowed in Middle English.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?k?s?nt, IPA^(key): /?ak.s?nt/
• (US) enPR: ?k?s?nt, IPA^(key): /?æk.s?nt/

Noun

accent (countable and uncountable, plural accents)

1. (linguistics) A higher-pitched or stronger articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to emphasize it.

2. (figuratively) Emphasis or importance in general.

3. (orthography) A mark or character used in writing, in order to indicate the place of the spoken accent, or to indicate the nature or quality of the vowel marked.

5. Modulation of the voice in speaking; the manner of speaking or pronouncing; a peculiar or characteristic modification of the voice, expressing emotion; tone.
   • 1608, William Shakespeare, King Lear, II-ii

     I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave; which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to 't.

   • 1696, Matthew Prior, "From Celia to Damon", in Poems on Several Occasions

     The tender Accent of a Woman's Cry / Will pass unheard, will unregarded die;
6. (linguistics, sociolinguistics) The distinctive manner of pronouncing a language associated with a particular region, social group, etc., whether of a native speaker or a foreign speaker; the phonetic and phonological aspects of a dialect.

7. (linguistics, sign languages) A distinctive manner of producing a sign language, such as someone who does not normally use a certain sign language might have when using it.
   • 2015 December 3, [./http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-03/philadelphia-accent-sign-language There's a distinctly Philadelphia accent in American Sign Language]
8. A word; a significant tone or sound.
9. (usually plural only) Expressions in general; speech.

   • Winds! on your wings to Heaven her accents bear, / Such words as Heaven alone is fit to hear.

10. (prosody, poetry) Stress laid on certain syllables of a verse.
11. (music) A regularly recurring stress upon the tone to mark the beginning, and, more feebly, the third part of the measure.
12. (music) A special emphasis of a tone, even in the weaker part of the measure.
13. (music) The rhythmical accent, which marks phrases and sections of a period.
14. (music) The expressive emphasis and shading of a passage.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of J. S. Dwight to this entry?)

15. (music) A mark used to represent specific stress on a note.
16. (mathematics) A mark placed at the right hand of a letter, and a little above it, to distinguish magnitudes of a similar kind expressed by the same letter, but differing in value, as y', y''.
17. (geometry) A mark at the right hand of a number, indicating minutes of a degree, seconds, etc., as in 12' 27'', meaning twelve minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
18. (engineering) A mark used to denote feet and inches, as in 6' 10'', meaning six feet ten inches.
19. Emphasis laid on a part of an artistic design or composition; an emphasized detail, in particular a detail in sharp contrast to its surroundings.
20. A very small gemstone set into a piece of jewellery.
21. A distinctive feature or quality.
22. (archaic) Utterance.

Usage notes

The word "accent" is often used specifically to refer to manners of speech that differ significantly from the local standard or one's personal speech.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• circumflex

References

• “Accent, sb.” on pages 50–51 of § 1 (A) of volume I (A–B, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray?, 1888) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)
• “accent, n.” in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., 1989)

Etymology 2

From Middle French accenter, from Old French accenter, from Latin accent?, from accentus.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?k-s?nt?, IPA^(key): /æk?s?nt/
• (US) enPR: ?k-s?nt?, ?k?s?nt, IPA^(key): /æk?s?nt/, /?æk.s?nt/

Verb

accent (third-person singular simple present accents, present participle accenting, simple past and past participle accented)

1. (transitive) To express the accent of vocally; to utter with accent.
2. (transitive) To mark emphatically; to emphasize; to accentuate; to make prominent.
3. (transitive) To mark with written accents.

Translations

References

• “Accent, v.” on page 51/3 of § 1 (A) of volume I (A–B, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray?, 1888) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)
• “accent, v.” in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., 1989)

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin accentus.

Noun

accent m (plural accents)

1. accent

Derived terms

• accent agut
• accent greu

Related terms

• accentuar

Further reading

• “accent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Danish

Etymology 1

From French accentus, from Latin accentus, a calque of Ancient Greek ???????? (pros?idía, “prosody, accent”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [????s??]

Noun

accent c (singular definite accenten, plural indefinite accenter)

1. accent (a voice influenced by dialect or another language)
2. accent (a mark on a letter (like grave or acute))

Inflection

Etymology 2

From Latin accentus, a calque of Ancient Greek ???????? (pros?idía, “prosody, accent”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [????s?n?d?]

Noun

accent c (singular definite accenten, plural indefinite accenter)

1. (linguistics) accent (stress or a pitch in articulation)
2. accent (emphasis)
3. accent (a mark on a letter (like grave or acute))

Inflection

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch accent, ultimately from Latin accentus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?s?nt/
• Hyphenation: ac?cent
• Rhymes: -?nt

Noun

accent n (plural accenten, diminutive accentje n)

1. (linguistics) accent (distinctive pronunciation of a language; phonetic and phonological aspects of a lect)
2. A notably deviant or disprivileged pronunciation of a language.
3. (linguistics) accent (contrasting articulation to express emphasis)
4. (orthography) accent (symbol to indicate spoken accent or the nature of a vowel)

   Synonym: accentteken

5. (music) accent (stress or emphasis)
6. (music) A mark that indicates musical accent.

   Synonym: accentteken

Derived terms

• accentteken

Related terms

• accentueren

Descendants

• Afrikaans: aksent
• ? Indonesian: aksen

French

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) 

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak.s??/

Noun

accent m (plural accents)

1. accent, manner or tone of speech
2. (linguistics) an accent symbol
3. (linguistics) accent, stress
4. (music) strain, section

Derived terms

• accent aigu
• accent circonflexe
• accent grave
• mettre l'accent sur

Descendants

• ? Norwegian Bokmål: accent
• ? Turkish: aksan

Further reading

• “accent” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Norman

Etymology

From Old French acent, from Latin accentus, from ad + cantus (“song”).

Noun

accent m (plural accents)

1. (linguistics) accent, stress

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From French accent (“accent, manner or tone of speech”), from Middle French accent, from Old French acent, from Latin accentus (“accent, tone, accentuation”), past participle of accin? (“sing to, sing along”), from ad- +? can? (“sing”), a calque of Ancient Greek ???????? (pros?idía, “song sung to music; pronunciation of syllable”), from ???? (prós, “to”) + ??? (?id?, “song”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak?sa?/
• Rhymes: -a?
• Hyphenation: ac?cent
• Homophone: aksent

Noun

accent

1. Alternative spelling of aksent (“accent”)
2. Only used in accent aigu (“acute accent”)
3. Only used in accent circonflexe (“circumflex”)
4. Only used in accent grave (“grave accent”)

References

• “accent” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Old English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin accentus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k.kent/

Noun

accent m

1. (phonology) accent

Declension

References

• John R. Clark Hall (1916) , “accent”, in A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York: Macmillan.
• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) , “accent”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Romanian

Etymology

From French accent

Noun

accent n (plural accente)

1. emphasis
2. accent

Declension

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a(k)?s?nt/

Noun

accent (plural accents)

1. accent

Swedish

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin accentus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ak??s?n?t/, /ak??sa??/

Noun

accent c

1. an accent, an emphasis, a stress (in articulation)
2. an accent, a mark on a letter (grave or acute)
3. an accent, a voice influenced by dialect or another language

Declension

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: l?ng?gw?j, IPA^(key): /?læ??w?d??/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): (see /æ/ raising) [?le???w?d??]
• Hyphenation: lan?guage

Etymology 1

From Middle English langage, language, from Old French language, from Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Old Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn???wéh?s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Old English ?eþ?ode.

Noun

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

1. (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
   • 1867, Report on the Systems of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907 ?ISBN, page 240:

     Hence the natural language of the mute is, in schools of this class, suppressed as soon and as far as possible, and its existence as a language, capable of being made the reliable and precise vehicle for the widest range of thought, is ignored.
2. (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.

3. (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:

     And ‘blubbing’... Blubbing went out with ‘decent’ and ‘ripping’. Mind you, not a bad new language to start up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could be due for a revival.

4. (countable, uncountable, figuratively) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.
   • 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Becoming a Counselor ?ISBN:

     A tale about themselves [is] told by people with help from the universal languages of their eyes, their hands, and even their shirting feet.
5. (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
   • 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:

     A more likely hypothesis was that the attacked leaves were transmitting some airborne chemical signal to sound the alarm, rather like insects sending out warnings […] But this is the first time that a plant-to-plant language has been detected.

   • 2009, Animals in Translation, page 274:

     Prairie dogs use their language to refer to real dangers in the real world, so it definitely has meaning.

6. (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
   • 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages ?ISBN, page 94

     In fact pointers are called references in these languages to distinguish them from pointers in languages like C and C++.

7. (uncountable) Manner of expression.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Hope

     Their language simple, as their manners meek, […]

8. (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.

9. (uncountable) Profanity.

Synonyms

• (form of communication): see Thesaurus:language
• (vocabulary of a particular field): see Thesaurus:jargon
• (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
• (particular words used): see Thesaurus:wording

Hypernyms

• medium

Hyponyms

• See Category:en:Languages

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)

1. (rare, now nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.

   • Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense.

See also

• bilingual
• lexis
• linguistics
• multilingual
• term
• trilingual
• word

Etymology 2

Alteration of languet.

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.

References

• language at OneLook Dictionary Search
• language in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• language in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. Archaic spelling of langage.

Middle English

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. Alternative form of langage

Middle French

Alternative forms

• langage
• langaige
• languaige

Etymology

From Old French language.

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue

Descendants

• French: langage
  • Haitian Creole: langaj
    • ? English: langaj
  • Mauritian Creole: langaz

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lan??ad???/

Noun

language f (oblique plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue, lingue

Descendants

• ? Middle English: language
  • English: language
• Middle French: language
  • French: langage
    • Haitian Creole: langaj
      • ? English: langaj
    • Mauritian Creole: langaz
• ? Old Spanish: lenguage