A system of words formed from such combinations and patterns, used by the people of a particular country or by a group of people with a shared history or set of traditions. The special vocabulary and usages of a scientific, professional, or other group. Language as a subject of study. The wording of a legal document or statute as distinct from the spirit. Note that the phenomena named by the extended senses are quite different from one another.
Writing is a system of transcription for speech.
Deaf sign languages are an expression in a different medium of the same underlying human capabilities and needs as spoken language. Some linguists think that the boundary between the patterns of spoken language and other modes of communication is not a sharp one, or even that it is entirely artificial. A larger proportion of poets, philosophers and religious thinkers agree with them, often going on to view language as magically connected to the world it describes. The core of the field of linguistics has always been the analysis of linguistic structure, and this course will introduce the basic concepts of this disciplinary core. However, there's a lot of intellectual, practical and human interest in other aspects of the study of language, and we'll survey these as well.