We explore an analogy between the family β1, of finite/cofinite languages and the family ψ1 of languages whose syntactic monoids are J-trivial. It is shown that (a) J-trivial monoids, (b)L-trivial monoids, (c) R-trivial monoids, and (d) a recently studied family, that we callK, of aperiodic monoids are natural generalization of the families of syntactic semigroups of (a) finite/cofinite languages, (b) definite languages, (c) reverse definite languages, and (d) generalized definite languages, respectively. In the case of alphabets of one and two letters, the languages corresponding to the familyK of monoids are characterized, illustrating the above-mentioned analogy explicitly.