Is Math a Language?

January 2026
Deborah White 

People say that mathematics is a language, but what does that mean? If it is a language, and it most certainly is, how it is taught becomes more important than the mere manipulation of symbols which is what most people think math is. If we’re going to teach language, let’s start with literacy. Specifically, what can an ESL tutor do to help their students most effectively?

I was an early and, to this day, constant reader. I remember the exact moment I learned to read. My first-grade teacher asked the class if anyone knew how to read. I said I did (I didn’t). She pointed to the first word, ‘Go’ and asked me to read it. I couldn’t. “Go,” she said. She pointed to the second word, ‘go’ and asked me to read it. I couldn’t. “Go,” she said. She pointed to the third word, ‘go’ and asked me to read it. And I could! I had learned to read between the second and third words.

My grandson Julian had a very novel way of letting us know he’d learned to read on his own. My son Oliver and I were watching a baseball game on TV in the living room. Julian came out of the computer room at the back of the house and announced, “Brandon Phillips just hit a home run to deep left.” I walked to the computer and saw the play-by-play text that he had read. Sometimes you just need the motivation of something you really want to read!

My daughter Sigrid hadn’t learned to read effortlessly through fourth grade. And if you can’t read effortlessly, you probably won’t be reading much. A graduate education course I’d taken in reading helped me understand why. To learn to read, you must have a firm grasp of going from left to right (or right to left, depending on the language), and Sigrid just didn’t.

Here’s how she finally learned to read well. We didn’t have a TV for the first ten years of her life. And when we got one, she finally had an important source of information that required reading: the TV Guide. And shortly she became a constant reader. Getting a student involved in a word, or a sentence, or whatever makes them pay attention to the written word should be a tutor’s goal.

But back to math! Yes, we say that math is a language, and that is true in so many ways, but I want to focus on the words used to describe math concepts and entities, and the coefficient of proportionality is a perfect example. You know, a babysitter is paid $5 an hour. To find the amount earned, multiply 5 by the number of hours worked. The number 5 is called the coefficient of proportionality, eleven syllables that often bypass the student’s brain entirely.

Each of these words requires a lengthy explanation, but if you are told to use the phrase in the proper context, you owe it to the students to make sure they know what you’re talking about.

Either that, or try the minimalist approach: See that equation, y = kx? The k is called the coefficient of proportionality. Deal with it. End of story.

But if we maintain that math is a language, as people throughout history have, then we’d better be prepared to explain its jargon.

If I asked you what the sum of 6 and 3 is, I don’t have to tell you what I want you to do with the 6 and the 3. Duh, add them. That’s what the word “sum” means. This is something that has to be learned, like difference, product, and quotient. I find “product” particularly amusing, because its everyday meaning gives no indication that you’re supposed to multiply. You’re producing something, but how?

And quotient? Don’t get me started. 8 ÷ 2 means 8 divided by 2, not 8 divided into 2. The way this is written in long division, with the divisor on the outside, makes this even more confusing.

More math words that need to be absorbed: opposite, additive inverse, multiplicative inverse, reciprocal, and so many more! 

And then there’s algorithm. Such a useful concept, and very much in the popular culture. I know this because when 8-year-old Julian showed me his prowess at solving Rubik’s cubes, and I asked him how he’d gotten so good, he said he’d learned an algorithm on YouTube. I was impressed.

If we’re going to make children learn to do arithmetic by hand, the kindest thing we can do is have them do it using an algorithm, “a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions,” named after that great Persian mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī. This eliminates the guess work and those really annoying explanations that just drag this out.

Here’s one:

The Algorithm of Long Division: Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring down

And, as with all algorithms, repeat as necessary.

I was discussing this algorithm with my granddaughter Leila, who remarked, “Oh, you mean the family of long division!” Leila answered my blank stare with, “Dad, mom, sister, brother.” What a perfect mixture of language and math!