Cross listed with LINGST 3620-01

How many languages are spoken around the world? The course gives an introduction into the diversity of the languages of the world, their geographical distribution, genetic relationships, and their typological similarities and differences. The goal of the course is to give a general impression of the linguistic diversity across the world, but also to discuss approaches to classify languages according to their historical relationships or similarities in grammar. In the main part of the course, the student will get to know a variety of recurrent cross-linguistic patterns, many of which can be cast into typological universals. In the accompanying exercises, the student will learn to apply typological methods and concepts to data from unfamiliar languages.