languagedescription

Languagedescription is the systematic documentation and specification of a language's features, aimed at capturing its structure, use, and rules. It covers natural languages as well as programming and other formal languages. In linguistics, description typically includes phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, lexicon, and sociolinguistic context, along with discourse patterns and variation.

In natural language work, descriptions are produced through fieldwork, corpora, and elicitation, and are published as descriptive grammars, dictionaries, and annotated texts. They aim for clarity, accuracy, and cross-linguistic comparability, often using glossed examples and tree representations to show structure and meaning. For programming and formal languages, languagedescription means specifying a language's formal syntax and semantics, usually expressed with grammars (for example BNF or EBNF), type rules, and formal semantics, which inform implementations such as compilers, interpreters, and parsers.

Outputs may include grammars, lexical resources, dictionaries, and machine-readable metadata. Standards and codes, such as ISO 639 language codes and archival metadata guidelines, help organize and preserve resources. Languagedescription supports natural language processing, software localization, education, and language revitalization, providing a stable basis for analysis and reuse across projects.

Key challenges include documenting under-described languages, addressing linguistic variation, ensuring ethical collaboration with language communities, and maintaining long-term accessibility of resources.