language

1a :  the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community studied the French languageb (1) :  audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2) :  a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings the language of mathematics (3) :  the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings language in their very gesture — William Shakespeare (4) :  the means by which animals communicate the language of birds (5) :  a formal system of signs and symbols (such as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6) :  machine language 1

2a :  form or manner of verbal expression; specifically :  style the beauty of Shakespeare's languageb :  the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge the language of diplomacy medical languagec :  profanity shouldn't of blamed the fellers if they'd cut loose with some language — Ring Lardner

3 :  the study of language especially as a school subject earned a grade of B in language

4 :  specific words especially in a law or regulation The police were diligent in enforcing the language of the law.