Language — From Old French to English | etymologist.ai
language
/ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/·noun·c. 1290, Middle English 'langage', meaning 'words, what is said, conversation'·Established
Origin
From PIE *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (tongue), through Latin *lingua* (itself a shift from archaic *dingua*), into Old French *langage* by the 12th century and Middle English by 1290 — the word carries the organ of speech all the way into the name of the abstract system, making English *tongue* and *language* distantcousins by the same root.
Definition
A structured system of communication consisting of a set of sounds, symbols, or gestures used by a community to convey meaning, express thought, and transmit culture.
The Full Story
Old FrenchLate 13th century (English adoption)well-attested
The English word 'language' entered the language in the late 13th century (c. 1290) via Old French 'langage', which had been in use since the 12th century with the meanings 'speech, words, oratory' and also 'a tribe, people, nation' — reflecting the medieval conflation of linguistic and ethnic identity. Old French 'langage' was formed from 'langue' (tongue, language) with the suffix '-age', deriving from Vulgar Latin 'linguaticum', itself from classical Latin 'lingua' meaning both the physical organ 'tongue' and 'speech, language'. Notably, Old Latin had 'dingua' (attested in early inscriptions), which transparently reflects the PIE root *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s 'tongue'. The shift from Old Latin 'dingua' to classical Latin 'lingua' involved the irregular change of initial d- to l-, which scholarsexplain as contamination
Did you know?
English *tongue* and English *language* share the same Proto-Indo-European ancestor — *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s* — but arrived by completely different routes: *tongue* was inherited through Old English *tunge* from Germanic, while *language* was borrowed through Old French from Latin *lingua*, which itself evolved from archaic Latin *dingua* via a sound change. Most speakers use both words every daywithout any sense that they are, etymologically, the same word said twice.
'jihvā', Old Irish 'tenge', Old Church Slavonic 'jezyku', and Lithuanian 'liežuvis' all descend from the same ancestor. In English, the parallel reflex 'tongue' (from Proto-
, linguist, lingo, lingua franca, multilingual, sublingual, lingual — all via Latin 'lingua' — as well as 'tongue' itself via the Germanic branch. Key roots: *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (Proto-Indo-European: "tongue (the physical organ; by extension, speech)"), lingua (Latin: "tongue; speech, language (irregularly from Old Latin dingua via influence of lingō, 'I lick')"), langage (Old French: "speech, words, oratory; a tribe or people defined by their speech").