Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LAN'GUAGE, n. [Fr. langage; Sp. lengua, lenguage; Port. linguagem; It. linguaggio; Arm. langaich; from L. lingua, the tongue, and speech. It seems to be connected with lingo, to lick; the n is evidently casual, for ligula; in Latin, is a little tongue, and this signifies also a strap or lace, as if the primary sense were to extend.]

1. Human speech; the expression of ideas by words or significant articulate sounds, for the communication of thoughts. Language consists in the oral utterance of sounds, which usage has made the representatives of ideas. When two or more persons customarily annex the same sounds to the same ideas, the expression of these sounds by one person communicates his ideas to another. This is the primary sense of language, the use of which is to communicate the thoughts of one person to another through the organs of hearing. Articulate sounds are represented by letters, marks or characters which form words. Hence language consists also in
2. Words duly arranged in sentences, written, printed, or engraved, and exhibited to the eye.
3. The speech or expression of ideas peculiar to a particular nation. Men had originally one and the same language, but the tribes or families of men, since their dispersion, have distinct languages.
4. Style; manner of expression. Others for language all their care express. – Pope.
5. The inarticulate sounds by which irrational animals express their feelings and wants. Each species of animals has peculiar sounds, which are uttered instinctively, and are understood by its own species, and its own species only.
6. Any manner of expressing thoughts. Thus we speak of the language of the eye, a language very expressive and intelligible.
7. A nation, as distinguished by their speech. Dan. iii.