English > tongue: 10 senses > noun 2, communication| Meaning | A human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language. |
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| Synonym | natural language |
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| Narrower | Afroasiatic, Afro-Asiatic, Afroasiatic language, Afrasian, Afrasian language, Hamito-Semitic | A large family of related languages spoken both in Asia and Africa |
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| Amerind, Amerindian language, American-Indian language, American Indian, Indian | A member of the race of people living in America when Europeans arrived |
| Austro-Asiatic, Austro-Asiatic language, Munda-Mon-Khmer | A family of languages spoken in southern and southeastern Asia |
| Austronesian, Austronesian language | The family of languages spoken in Australia and Formosa and Malaysia and Polynesia |
| Basque | The language of the Basque people |
| Caucasian, Caucasian language | A number of languages spoken in the Caucasus that are unrelated to languages spoken elsewhere |
| Chukchi, Chukchi language | An indigenous and isolated language of unknown origin / origin spoken by the Chukchi that is pronounced differently by men and women |
| Dravidian, Dravidic, Dravidian language | A large family of languages spoken in south and central India and Sri Lanka |
| Elamitic, Elamite, Susian | An extinct ancient language of unknown affinities |
| Eskimo-Aleut, Eskimo-Aleut language | The family of languages that includes Eskimo and Aleut |
| Hmong, Hmong language, Miao | A language of uncertain affiliation spoken by the Hmong |
| Indo-European, Indo-European language, Indo-Hittite | The family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia |
| Kassite, Cassite | An ancient language spoken by the Kassites |
| Khoisan, Khoisan language | A family of languages spoken in southern Africa |
| Niger-Kordofanian, Niger-Kordofanian language | The family of languages that includes most of the languages spoken in Africa south of the Sahara |
| Nilo-Saharan, Nilo-Saharan language | A family of East African languages spoken by Nilotic peoples from the Sahara south to Kenya and Tanzania |
| Papuan, Papuan language | Any of the indigenous languages spoken in Papua New Guinea or New Britain or the Solomon ... / Solomon Islands that are not Malayo-Polynesian languages |
| Sino-Tibetan, Sino-Tibetan language | The family of tonal languages spoken in eastern Asia |
| Ural-Altaic | A (postulated) group of languages including many of the indigenous languages of Russia (but not Russian) |
| creole | A mother tongue that originates from contact between two languages |
| mother tongue, maternal language, first language | One's native language |
| tone language, tonal language | A language in which different tones distinguish different meanings |
| Broader | language, linguistic communication | A systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols |
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| Opposite | artificial language | A language that is deliberately created for a specific purpose |
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| Spanish | idioma, lenguaje natural, lengua, lengua natural |
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| Catalan | idioma, llengua, llengua natural, llenguatge natural |
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