language, linguistic communication - a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols; "he taught foreign languages"; "the language introduced is standard throughout the text"; "the speed with which a program can be executed depends on the language in which it is written"

first language, maternal language, mother tongue - one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next

tonal language, tone language - a language in which different tones distinguish different meanings

creole - a mother tongue that originates from contact between two languages

American-Indian language, Amerind, Amerindian language, American Indian, Indian - any of the languages spoken by Amerindians

Eskimo-Aleut, Eskimo-Aleut language - the family of languages that includes Eskimo and Aleut

Sino-Tibetan, Sino-Tibetan language - the family of tonal languages spoken in eastern Asia

Austro-Asiatic, Munda-Mon-Khmer - a family of languages spoken in southn and southeastern Asia

Austronesian language, Austronesian - the family of languages spoken in Australia and Formosa and Malaysia and Polynesia

Papuan, Papuan language - any of the indigenous languages spoken in Papua New Guinea or New Britain or the Solomon Islands that are not Malayo-Polynesian languages

Khoisan, Khoisan language - a family of languages spoken in southern Africa

Indo-European language, Indo-Hittite, Indo-European - the family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia

Ural-Altaic - a (postulated) group of languages including many of the indigenous languages of Russia (but not Russian)

Basque - the language of the Basque people; of no known relation to any other language

Elamitic, Susian, Elamite - an extinct ancient language of unknown affinities; spoken by the Elamites

Cassite, Kassite - an ancient language spoken by the Kassite people

Caucasian language, Caucasian - a number of languages spoken in the Caucasus that have no known affiliations to languages spoken elsewhere

Dravidian language, Dravidic, Dravidian - a large family of languages spoken in south and central India and Sri Lanka

Afrasian, Afrasian language, Afro-Asiatic, Afroasiatic, Afroasiatic language, Hamito-Semitic - a large family of related languages spoken both in Asia and Africa

Niger-Kordofanian, Niger-Kordofanian language - the family of languages that includes most of the languages spoken in Africa south of the Sahara; the majority of them are tonal languages but there are important exceptions (e.g., Swahili or Fula)

Nilo-Saharan, Nilo-Saharan language - a family of East African languages spoken by Nilotic peoples from the Sahara south to Kenya and Tanzania