English
sublanguage
From sub- + language.
Proto-Indo-European *upó ‘up; from below’
Proto-Italic *supo ‘under’
Latin sub ‘under, beneath, below’
English sub-
Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s ‘tongue, speech, language’
…
Latin lingua ‘tongue, speech, language’
Vulgar Latin *linguāticum
Old French language
Middle English langage ‘language’
English language
Today it means
noun A subset of a language, in particular of a programming language.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “sublanguage”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / sublanguage