Welcome to the Linguistics Portal!

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics is based on a theoretical as well as a descriptive study of language and is also interlinked with the applied fields of language studies and language learning, such as translation theory and practice, speech language pathology, as well as the individual study of specific languages.

Before the 20th century, linguistics evolved in conjunction with the field of literary studies and did not employ the same methods that were later used by formal and theoretical linguists in in the 20th century. Modern-day linguistics is considered a science because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language – i.e., the cognitive, the social, the cultural, the psychological, the environmental, the biological, the literary, the grammatical, the paleographical, and the structural.

Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to concepts in syntax (the rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (the structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language), pragmatics (the science of how social context contributes to meaning), and semiotics (the use of gestures that are also formally employed in sign languages). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions.

Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics (including traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with understanding the universal and fundamental nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it. Applied linguistics seeks to utilise the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy. (Full article...)

Selected article - show another

Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It has not been deciphered despite numerous attempts. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even these glyphs can be read. If rongorongo does prove to be writing, it would be one of only three or four known independent inventions of writing in human history. Two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions, some heavily weathered, burned, or otherwise damaged, were collected in the late 19th century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. The objects are mostly tablets made from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but include a chieftain's staff, a bird-man statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. Oral history suggests that only a small elite was ever literate and that the tablets were sacred. Authentic rongorongo texts are written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon. In the case of the tablets these lines are often inscribed in shallow fluting carved into the wood. The glyphs have a characteristic outline appearance and include human, animal, plant, artifact and geometric forms. (more...)

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:

The number 605 in Khmer Numerals

... that the world's largest mathematical experiment, designed by Brian Butterworth, found women to be faster than men at subitizing?
... that Khmer numerals were the first material evidence of the figure zero as a numerical figure?
... that in the English plural, the letter -s is pronounced differently in words like "cats", "cabs", and "buses", because of a phonological rule?
...that the 2005 movie The Interpreter by film director Sydney Pollack was based on real-life conference interpreters from the United Nations Interpretation Service?
... that Samuel Taylor Coleridge spelled William Shakespeare's last name as "Shakspere"?