Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A human written or spoken language as opposed to a computer language.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun retronym, countable a
human language which hasevolved naturally in a community, usually in contrast to computerprogramming languages or to artificially constructed languages such as Esperanto. - noun uncountable natural languages (sense 1) considered collectively
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
natural + language
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Examples
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rolig commented on the word natural language
Reading another comment on Wordnik that referred to "natural language", it struck me that the term is a retronym. I'm not sure when it originated, but I imagine the term was first used to distinguish human communication from machine communication.
October 4, 2015