"private language" meaning in All languages combined

See private language on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: private languages [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} private language (plural private languages)
  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see private, language.
    Sense id: en-private_language-en-noun-6dnMB5Ul
  2. (philosophy) A language which expresses one's inner thoughts, feelings, or experiences but which cannot be used for communication, since it is known to and understandable by only one person—the existence of which was famously argued by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) to be impossible. Categories (topical): Philosophy
    Sense id: en-private_language-en-noun-wtTO6Ig- Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 14 86 Topics: human-sciences, philosophy, sciences
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: private language argument, private language problem, private language thesis

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for private language meaning in All languages combined (3.9kB)

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      "word": "private language argument"
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          "ref": "1984 July 1, Donal Henahan, “On Language: The Words of Music”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-04-29",
          "text": "Every calling has its private language, clear and precise to insiders but pure babble to others.",
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          "ref": "1993 March 14, Lynn Barber, \"Books: Daphne's dilemma\" (book review of Daphne du Maurier by Margaret Forster), The Independent (UK) (retrieved 29 Apr 2014)",
          "text": "They were an affluent, unstuffy, slightly bohemian family, keen on holidays and socialising, with their own Mitfordian private language."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 August 13, Mark Brown, “Linguist on mission to save Inuit 'fossil language' disappearing with the ice”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2014-04-29",
          "text": "In daily life, the Kallawaya use Spanish or Aymara, but when discussing the medicinal plants central to their role as healers, the men speak their own private language.",
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          "text": "A private language was not merely a language contingently spoken by one person. . . . A private language was meant to be be semantically and necessarily private: one whose symbols could by definition be \"understood only by the speaker\".",
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          "ref": "1995 October 6, Pepe Karmel, “Art in Review”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-04-29",
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          "ref": "1996 May 4, Peter Mullen, “'I' is a tyrant. You are what you eat”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-04-29",
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          "ref": "1993 March 14, Lynn Barber, \"Books: Daphne's dilemma\" (book review of Daphne du Maurier by Margaret Forster), The Independent (UK) (retrieved 29 Apr 2014)",
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          "ref": "2010 August 13, Mark Brown, “Linguist on mission to save Inuit 'fossil language' disappearing with the ice”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 2014-04-29",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.