I know that in English, but don't know for other Germanic languages. Did other Germanic languages use the same word for tongue and language. English does have tongue as an organ and mother tongue 'language'. Although it did use tongue in the past and not language for languages.
Germanic languages: Tongue/language same word
- Thread starter dihydrogen monoxide
- Start date
Not in modern German. It's Sprache vs Zunge.
Not in Dutch or Swedish:
tong / taal
tunga / språk
tong / taal
tunga / språk
Nor in Danish and Norwegian. But it's a kind of logical association, and it's used in Romance languages, so maybe also in some non-Indo-European "tongues", who knows...
...and I almost forgot, of course, Slavic languages, e.g. язык in Russian is both "tongue" and "language".
So in archaic German you could say Deutsche Zunge.
I don't think it's a question of mordern or archaic but of poetic or not.
Some of the modern Slavic languages use different words, though (Bel./Ukr. язык/язик vs. мова; cf. Rus. молва - talk, rumors).
Yes, of course. When I went to the west of Ukraine, I armed myself with the phrases не розмовляю українською мовою and розмовляю трохи українською мовою. But I found that even in the far west most people understood Russian and could also speak it in many cases.
I wonder if using 'tongue' for 'language' is only an Indo-European thing? It's not the same in Thai and Arabic, at least. I suppose if someone had a lot of time on their hands, they could translate 'tongue' and 'language' into all the languages on Google translate and see what they found...
I wonder if using 'tongue' for 'language' is only an Indo-European thing? It's not the same in Thai and Arabic, at least. I suppose if someone had a lot of time on their hands, they could translate 'tongue' and 'language' into all the languages on Google translate and see what they found...
The Baltic languages also use different words:
tongue / language:
mēle / valoda (Latvian)
liežuvis / kalba (Lithuanian)
tongue / language:
mēle / valoda (Latvian)
liežuvis / kalba (Lithuanian)
In Finnish the word kieli have four meanings: tongue; language; string (musical instruments such as guitarr); reed (in woodwind instruments).
In Swedish there is the word tungomål, which have been used both for language, and for dialect, but today it's usually only known in tungomålstalande (speaking in tongues), used in some Christian denominations, such as Pentecostal.
In Swedish there is the word tungomål, which have been used both for language, and for dialect, but today it's usually only known in tungomålstalande (speaking in tongues), used in some Christian denominations, such as Pentecostal.
And in Greek «γλώσσα» vs «γλώσσα» [ˈɣlɔsa] (fem.).
Ancient Greek used the same word too: «Γλῶσσα» glôssă (fem.) vs «γλῶσσα» glôssă (fem.) (Attic «γλῶττα» glôttă) which stood for the dialect too, eg: «Ἡ Ἀττικὴ γλῶττα» hē attikḗ glôtta --> the Attic dialect
In Hungarian, which is non-Indo-European, we use the word 'nyelv' for both meanings.
Arabic لسان /lisa:n/ "tongue" may be also used for "language", although it isn't the main word for it. That metonymy must be pretty widespread.