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In this Adventure in Etymology we find out what links the words tongue and language.
A tongue [tʌŋ] is a flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved into various positions to modify the flow of air from the lungs in order to produce different sounds in speech. It can also refer to a language. Other meanings are available.
It comes from Middle English tong(e) / tung(e) (tongue, language, speech), from Old English tunge (a tongue, a language), from Proto-West Germanic *tungā (tongue, speech, language), from Proto-Germanic *tungǭ (tongue, speech, language), from PIE *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (tongue) [source].
Words from the same roots include լեզու (lezu – tongue, language, speech, nation, people) in Armenian, liežuvis (tongue) in Lithuanian, jazyk (tongue, language) in Czech, tunga (tongue, language, speech) in Swedish, and Zunge (tongue) in German [source].
Words such as lingua in Italian, lengua in Spanish and langue in French, all of which mean tongue or language, also come from the same roots, via Old Latin dinguā (tongue, language, speech) and Proto-Italic *dn̥ɣwā (tongue) [source].
Words in Celtic languages, such as teanga (tongue, language) in Irish, tafod (tongue) in Welsh, and taves (tongue, language) in Cornish, share the same roots, via Proto-Celtic *tangʷāts (tongue) [source].
The English words language, linguist and lingual (related to the tongue) have the same PIE roots as well. Language comes from Middle English lang(u)age (language, tongue, speech), from Old French language (language), from Vulgar Latin *linguāticum (language, manner of speaking), from Latin lingua (tongue, speech, language), etc. The other words were borrowed directly from Latin [source].
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I also write about words, etymology and other language-related topics on the Omniglot Blog, and I explore etymological connections between Celtic languages on the Celtiadur blog.