I’m a linguist and this is completely true.

unfavorableinstigation:

galileosballs:

real-language-facts:

one may think “language” is french or spinach for “the nguage”. this is a folk etymology myth, it is actually more like mile -> mileage. “How much language are you getting out ofthose words”

I regret to inform everyone that this is actually not that far off the real etymology. The ‘langue’ part of language comes from the latin 'lingua’, meaning 'tongue’, and the ’-age’ suffix is something the word picked up in old french as a suffix of action (like how a 'pilgrimage’ is 'that thing pilgrims do’). So really it’s more like 'what that tongue do’

Well, that’s upsetting.

I’m a linguist and this is completely true.

Also the Proto Indo-European root for tongue is cursed and needs to be brought to your attention:

late 13c., langage "words, what is said, conversation, talk,“ from Old French langage "speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *linguaticum , from Latin lingua "tongue,“ also "speech, language” (from PIE root *dnghu- "tongue"). The -u- is an Anglo-French insertion (see gu-); it was not originally pronounced.