A language is a system used to facilitate communication among higher animals and/or computers. This article concerns the fundamental features typically found in nearly all natural human languages. For information about artificial languages specifically for computers, see computer language. Higher animals believed to employ audible language only, without symbols, include, but are not limited to, dolphins and whales. For information about this subject, see animal communication. The Latin word "lingua" is equivalent to the English word "tongue"; the word "language" is intimately related to the word "tongue". Strategic interactions of the tongue with other components of the vocal tract, particularly the teeth and the palate, lead to the living synthesis of human speech. The term "language" can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. "Language" is also used to refer to the common properties of the various languages.

Translation is the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language (the "source text") and the production, in another language, of an equivalent text (the "target text," or "translation") that communicates the same message.

Translation must take into account a number of constraints, including context, the rules of grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, their idioms and the like.

Traditionally translation has been a human activity, though attempts have been made to computerize or otherwise automate the translation of natural-language texts (machine translation) or to use computers as an aid to translation (computer-assisted translation).

Perhaps the most common misconception about translation is that there exists a simple "word-for-word" relation between any two languages, and that translation is therefore a straightforward and mechanical process. On the contrary, historical differences between languages often dictate differences of expression. Hence, source and target texts may differ significantly in length[1]. In addition, translation is always fraught with uncertainties as well as the potential for inadvertent "spilling over" of idioms and usages from one language into the other, producing linguistic hybrids, for example, "Franglais" (French-English), "Spanglish" (Spanish-English), "Poglish" (Polish-English) and "Portunhol" (Portuguese-Spanish).