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Natural language

In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change without conscious planning or premeditation. It can take different forms, namely either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages are distinguished from constructed and formal languages such as those used to program computers or to study logic.[1]

This article is about languages naturally arising in human society. For natural language in computer systems, see Natural language processing.

artificial and , e.g. computer programming languages

constructed languages

constructed

international auxiliary languages

non-human such as whale and other marine mammal vocalizations or honey bees' waggle dance.[2]

communication systems in nature

Natural language can be broadly defined as different from


All varieties of world languages are natural languages, including those that are associated with linguistic prescriptivism or language regulation. (Nonstandard dialects can be viewed as a wild type in comparison with standard languages.) An official language with a regulating academy such as Standard French, overseen by the Académie Française, is classified as a natural language (e.g. in the field of natural language processing), as its prescriptive aspects do not make it constructed enough to be a constructed language or controlled enough to be a controlled natural language.

 – Process in which a first language is being acquired

Language acquisition

Origin of language

 – Study of meaning in natural languages

Formal semantics of natural languages