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 a 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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Nahua man from the Florentine Codex. The speech scrolls indicate speech or song.

Nahuatl (English: /ˈnɑːwɑːtəl/ NAH-wah-təl; hispanicized from Nawatl pronounced [ˈnaːwat͡ɬ] ^ⓘ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century AD. It was the language of the Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica.

Following the Spanish conquest, Spanish colonists and missionaries introduced the Latin script, and Nahuatl became a literary language. Many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in Nahuatl during the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl. It is among the most studied and best-documented Indigenous languages of the Americas. In 1570, King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. (Full article...)

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... that The Seoul Press was an English-language newspaper created to justify Japan's colonial rule of Korea?
... that in semantics, antonym is an antonym of synonym while synonym is not a synonym of antonym?
... that the Kurtöp language has a word for an assortment of sounds like "hard, non-spherical object[s] rolling down a paved road"?
... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
... that formal semantics uses logic and mathematics to study language?
... that there was recently interest in reviving the extinct Torá language, but no one knew enough of the language to move forward with the idea?

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...that Bambaiya Hindi, a pidgin used in Mumbai, is a combination of English, Marathi, Gujarati and several other languages?
...that famous epic poems like Beowulf and Judith were written in Late West Saxon?
...that the Inuktun language, spoken by 1000 Inughuit people around Qaanaaq in northern Greenland, is related to Canadian Inuit languages?
...that most Russian-speakers in the United States are Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union?

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Hindustani, the lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan, has two standardised registers: Hindi and Urdu. Grammatical differences between the two standards are minor but each uses its own script: Hindi uses Devanagari while Urdu uses an extended form of the Perso-Arabic script, typically in the Nastaʿlīq style.

On this grammar page, Hindustani is written in the transcription outlined in Masica (1991). Being "primarily a system of transliteration from the Indian scripts, [and] based in turn upon Sanskrit" (cf. ISO, IAST), these are its salient features: subscript dots for retroflex consonants; macrons for etymologically, contrastively long vowels; h for aspirated plosives; and tildes for nasalised vowels. (Full article...)

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Credit: Yug, Sting and The Ogre

Countries and regions where Portuguese has official status

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Language News

20 August 2026 – Sudanese civil war

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu regains control of Kauda, South Kordofan, following two days of clashes with Otoro fighters. (Sudan Tribune)

8 August 2026 – Sudanese civil war

A tribe leader in the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan accuses the Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North of launching attacks on Otoro villages in Kauda. Additionally, four aid workers are reported to be detained. (Sudan Tribune)

19 July 2026 – AI boom

Mathematician and Anthropic employee Levent Alpöge presents an explicit counterexample to the Jacobian conjecture in three-dimensional space that disproves the

n

-variable conjecture for

n>2

using the large language model Fable 5. The Jacobian conjecture for

n=1

remains true. (VNexpress) (NewScientist)

9 July 2026 – AI boom

OpenAI releases the large language model tool GPT-5.6, with significant advancements in cybersecurity. (Axios)

12 June 2026 – Regulation of artificial intelligence in the United States

The U.S. Department of Commerce orders artificial intelligence company Anthropic to ban non-Americans from accessing its large language models Claude Mythos and Fable 5. (BBC News) (CNBC)

23 May 2026 – Ukraine–Vietnam relations, Kazakhstan–Ukraine relations

In accordance with bilateral agreements, Vietnam grants 40 scholarships to Ukrainians for the 2026–2027 academic year for bachelor's, master's, and postgraduate degrees, including a one-year language course for those who do not speak Vietnamese. Kazakhstan also grants 40 scholarships for similar degrees. (Interfax-Ukraine)

Language news from Wikinews...

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