Several parts combine into one character.

語 is a phono-semantic character: 言 (speech) for meaning and 吾 (I) for sound. Exchanging speech (言) in conversation — from which grew "word, language, to talk." 吾 lends the sound "yu/go."

The simplified form is 语, with 言 reduced to the speech radical 讠 — the form splits by mode.

Korean hanja-sound "eo": 言語 (eoneo, language), 國語 (gugeo, national language), 單語 (daneo, word), 外國語 (oegugeo, foreign language), 語彙 (eohwi, vocabulary), 論語 (Noneo, the Analects). The 語 of 論語 (the Analects, the collected teachings of Confucius) is this character.

Mandarin: yǔ, 3rd tone (speech) / yù, 4th tone (to tell). 语言 (yǔyán, language), 汉语 (Hànyǔ, Chinese), 英语 (Yīngyǔ, English), 成语 (chéngyǔ, idiom), 语法 (yǔfǎ, grammar). A one-character, two-tone case — "to tell" is yù (4th tone).

Japanese: on-reading ゴ (go), kun かた.る (kataru). 言語 (gengo, language), 日本語 (nihongo, Japanese), 単語 (tango, word), 物語 (monogatari, a tale), 語学 (gogaku, language study). In Japanese every language name ends in ~語 (go) — 英語 (eigo, English), 中国語 (chūgokugo, Chinese).

Memory aid: speech (言) exchanged between me (吾) and you — the language we talk to each other.