Language Classes

Category: File - :Cuneiform script2.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Cuneiform is one of the first known forms of written language, but spoken language is believed to predate writing by tens of thousands of years at least.

A language is a particular kind of system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" ? the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In cognitive science the term is also sometimes extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols ? each pairing a specific sign with an intended meaning, established through social conventions.

The most obvious manifestations are spoken languages such as English or Spoken Chinese. However, there are also written languages and other systems of visual symbols such as sign languages.

Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language in the strict sense.

When discussed as a general phenomenon then, "language" may imply a particular type of human thought which can be present even when communication is not the result, and this way of thinking is also sometimes treated as indistinguishable from language itself. In Western philosophy, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word, logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason, as discussed below.