Languages of The World

Catalog description

This course aims to equip students with some basic facts about the world's languages, a fundamental prerequisite to understanding the nature of human language. We will be examining: (1) the diversity of languages across space and time, and (2) the fundamental similarities of languages. We will address a range of questions about language through an exploration of the following areas: language families and historical relationships, linguistic typology, language universals, sound and structure features of the world's languages, and writing systems.