different between language vs speak

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

English

Alternative forms

• speake (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English speken (“to speak”), from Old English specan (“to speak”), alteration of earlier sprecan (“to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprekan, from Proto-Germanic *sprekan? (“to speak, make a sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *spreg- (“to make a sound, utter, speak”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /spi?k/
• (General American) enPR: sp?k, IPA^(key): /spik/
• Rhymes: -i?k

Verb

speak (third-person singular simple present speaks, present participle speaking, simple past spoke or (archaic) spake, past participle spoken or (colloquial, nonstandard) spoke)

1. (intransitive) To communicate with one's voice, to say words out loud.

2. (intransitive, reciprocal) To have a conversation.

3. (by extension) To communicate or converse by some means other than orally, such as writing or facial expressions.

4. (intransitive) To deliver a message to a group; to deliver a speech.

5. (transitive) To be able to communicate in a language.
   1. (by extension) To be able to communicate in the manner of specialists in a field.
6. (transitive) To utter.

7. (transitive) To communicate (some fact or feeling); to bespeak, to indicate.
   • 1785, Frances Burney, Diary and letters of Madame d'Arblay, author of Evelina, Cecilia, &c., link:

     Their behaviour to each other speaks the most cordial confidence and happiness.
8. (informal, transitive, sometimes humorous) To understand (as though it were a language).

9. (intransitive) To produce a sound; to sound.
10. Of a bird, to be able to vocally reproduce words or phrases from a human language.
11. (transitive, archaic) To address; to accost; to speak to.

    • [He will] thee in hope; he will speak thee fair.

    • 1842, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Threnody in "Poems", published 1847, page 239

      Each village senior paused to scan / And speak the lovely caravan.

    • 2013, George Francis Dow, Slave Ships and Slaving (quoting an older text)

      Spoke the ship Union of Newport, without any anchor. The next day ran down to Acra, where the windlass was again capsized and the pawls broken.

Usage notes

• Saying that one speaks a language often means that one can or knows how to speak it ("I speak Italian"); similarly, "I don't speak Italian" usually means that one cannot, rather than that one chooses not to.

Synonyms

• articulate, talk, verbalize

Antonyms

• be silent

Derived terms

Coordinate terms

• sign

Related terms

• speech

Translations

Noun

speak (countable and uncountable, plural speaks)

1. language, jargon, or terminology used uniquely in a particular environment or group.

   Corporate speak; IT speak.

2. Speech, conversation.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

speak (plural speaks)

1. (dated) a low class bar, a speakeasy.

Anagrams

• Akpes, Paeks, Pasek, Peaks, Spake, kapes, peaks, spake

Scots

Etymology

From Old English sprecan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [sp?k]
• (North Northern Scots) IPA^(key): [sp?k]

Verb

speak (third-person singular present speaks, present participle speakin, past spak, past participle spoken)

1. to speak

Derived terms