Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so; and a language is any specific example of such a system.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been attributed to the 6th century BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.
* * * Philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.
