Word study

Language

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: language, languages. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “language” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • לָשׁוֹן lâshôntonguetranslated this way 14 times of its 112 uses · Strong’s H3956Noun  ·  Translated: tongue 61, tongues 23, language 11, bay 3

    Genesis 10:5 From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.

    Deuteronomy 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle — a nation whose language you will not understand,

    Full study and all 111 verses →
  • לִשָּׁן lishshântonguetranslated this way 7 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H3961Noun  ·  Translated: language 7

    Daniel 3:4 Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “O people of every nation and language, this is what you are commanded:

    Daniel 3:7 Therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and all kinds of music, the people of every nation and language would fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

    Full study and all 7 verses →
  • שָׂפָה sâphâhlip, speech, edgetranslated this way 6 times of its 167 uses · Strong’s H8193Noun  ·  Translated: lips 98, speech 12, rim 10, edge 9

    Genesis 11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech.

    Psalm 81:5 He ordained it as a testimony for Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt, where I heard an unfamiliar language:

    Full study and all 159 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • διάλεκτος diálektoslanguage, speechtranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s G1258Noun  ·  Translated: language 3

    Acts 1:19 This became known to all who lived in Jerusalem, so they called that field in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

    Acts 2:6 And when this sound rang out, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking his own language.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • φωνή phōnḗa sound, noise, voicetranslated this way 2 times of its 136 uses · Strong’s G5456Noun  ·  Translated: voice 83, loud voice 13, sound 8, voices 8

    1 Corinthians 14:10 Assuredly, there are many different languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning.

    1 Corinthians 14:11 If, then, I do not know the meaning of someone’s language, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me.

    Full study and all 125 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about language: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.