Code Breakers: Unlocking the Mysteries of One Human Language

Catalog description

This course will introduce you to the architecture of one language. Students will work from scratch with a speaker of a language that none of us know, with the goal of unlocking the mysteries of that language at all levels - sound system, word formation, sentence structure, semantics and pragmatics. You will learn how to elicit field data through direct questioning and gathering of texts, how to organize field data, how to prepare entries in a field dictionary, and how to organize and write grammar. Course restricted to University Honors Program students; others by permission of the UHP.