language

Universal Words noun of a country 1 [C] the system of communication in speech and writing that is used by people of a particular country: the Japanese language * How many languages do you speak? * Italian is my first language. * All the children must learn a foreign language. * She has a good command of the Spanish language. * a qualification in language teaching * They fell in love in spite of the language barrier (= the difficulty of communicating when people speak different languages). * Why study Latin? It's a dead language (= no longer spoken by anyone). seealsoMODERNLANGUAGE communication 2 [U] the use by humans of a system of sounds and words to communicate: theories about the origins of language * a study of language acquisition in two-year-olds style of speaking / writing 3 [U] a particular style of speaking or writing: bad / foul / strong language (= words that people may consider offensive) * literary / poetic language * the language of the legal profession * Give your instructions in everyday language. seealsoBADLANGUAGE movements / symbols / sound 4 [C,U] a way of expressing ideas and feelings using movements, symbols and sound: the language of mime * the language of dolphins / bees seealsoBODYLANGUAGE, SIGNLANGUAGE computing 5 [C,U] a system of symbols and rules that is used to operate a computer: a programming language IDIOMS mind / watch your language to be careful about what you say in order not to upset or offend sb: Watch your language, young man! speak / talk the same language to be able to communicate easily with another person because you share similar opinions and experience