If a native English speaker who knows no other language has to take an introductory class to learn French, the instructor will of course have to begin the discussion in English. The French language will be introduced to the native speaker of English, through the medium of his own. This is a real-world approximation of the concept of metalanguage--applicable in linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and formal logic, to name but a few fields. In the situation given, English is the metalanguage, and French is the object language. The metalanguage is one which is used to describe and discuss the properties of the object language. Another common example of a metalanguage would be an English grammar, which is used to describe and analyze the correctness of spoken and written English.

The prefix meta- (of Greek origin) is often added to words to give them similar special meanings. Similar to...