Languages of the World

Catalog description

This course is a survey of the languages and language families of the world and the people who speak them. We will look at historically, culturally, and linguistically important and interesting languages around the world and ask questions like “What do all languages have in common and how do they differ?”, “How can languages be used to trace different peoples and their past?” Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, at the end of this course, the students will have a good understanding of (i) the nature of the world’s linguistic diversity, (ii) the known history of the world’s major language families, and (iii) the ways in which contact among languages affects language structure.