Introduction to Historical Linguistics

Catalog description

Introduction to Historical Linguistics is designed to teach the theories, methods, and data linguists used to study ancient and modern languages and language families, and the connections that can be traced through language between seemingly diverse peoples and cultures. This course will teach the methodologies used by historical linguists to seek to understand language change, and to reconstruct ancient language forms. These methodologies require students to already have a basic understanding of linguistics, in particular phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, as the course teaches students how to use methodologies within those subfields to investigate historical phenomena. The course will also investigate how linguistic analysis can be used to inform the study of human history. Topics include how languages change and evolve over time; language families, language change due to language contact, and the connection between language, history and archaeology. Students will thus also learn what language can teach us about the history of people groups around the world.