Spoken language

Humans instinctively talk, as the conversation of these two men in Naples, Italy shows.

Spoken language has two meanings. In one sense, it is any example of language in which words and phrases are uttered using the articulatory organs, including the mouth, vocal folds and lungs. In another way, it may refer to the entire act of communicating verbally - what people mean or intend, the words they use, their accent, intonation and so on; anything, in fact, that might be found in speech rather than other forms of expression.

Spoken language contrasts with both sign language and written language. While a sign language is a language in its own right, written language is a way of recording a (usually also spoken) language. Signed and spoken language are therefore two instances of language itself, rather than one being prioritised over the other in any way. Sign languages have the same natural origin as spoken languages, and the same grammatical complexities, but use the hands, arms, and face rather than parts of the mouth.

When examining language that may be spoken or written, modern linguistics regards the spoken language as the natural or the primary medium of language for various reasons. From the point of view of linguistic evolution, spoken is prior to written language. The writing system of any language is always 'invented' by its users to record speech when the need arises. Even today, there are many languages that are spoken but not written. Then in everyday communication, spoken language plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed. Also, spoken language is always the way in which every native speaker acquires their mother tongue, with writing learned and taught later, often at school. For modern linguistics, spoken language reveals many true features of human speech while written language is only a 'revised' record of speech. Data for investigation and analysis is mostly drawn from everyday 'authentic' speech. Even from the point of view of grammar, spoken language may be quite different from written language.

Spoken languages also is in contrast to computer languages. Computer languages are distinguished by their artificial origin.