What is a language? Discuss the various components of a language, and explain the reasons behind distinctions of communities based on language.

What will be an ideal response?

A language is a system of symbols used by people to communicate. Verbal languages communicate thoughts and feelings. Each verbal language consists of a lexicon, a collection of words and expressions; a phonology, sounds used to pronounce words; and syntax and grammar, rules for combining words to form sentences.
All people who understand a particular language are part of a language community. For example, most of the people who live in Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, India, and the United States, belong to the English language community. The five largest language communities in the world are Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Hindi.
If all people in a particular language community knew all the words, pronounced them the same way, and used the same rules of grammar and syntax, communication would be easy. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The English spoken in England is not the same as the English spoken in the United States. And the English spoken in Boston is not the same as the English spoken in Biloxi, Mississippi, or in Fargo, North Dakota. A dialect is a unique form of a more general language spoken by a specific culture or co-culture. These smaller groups that speak a common dialect are known as speech communities. Some dialects are perceived to be "better" than others because they are spoken by the power elite of a language community. This dialect tends to be promoted as the "proper" form.
In addition to language and dialect, an idiolect is our own personal symbol system that includes our individual unique pronunciations, grammar, and syntax. We may have words in our personal lexicon that are understood by very few people as well as words understood by large numbers of people. Likewise, we may pronounce some words or use grammar or syntax in idiosyncratic ways.