Cross listed with LING 3620-01

This course is a survey of the languages and language families of the world and the people who speak them. We will look at historically, culturally, and linguistically important and interesting languages around the world. The purpose of the course is to give you a sense of the languages themselves (sounds, grammatical structure, writing system, etc.) together with basic information about their speakers, their history, and the geography and history of the regions where they are spoken. The basic idea behind this course is not to teach any one thing in particular, but rather to give the student a broad awareness of the world’s languages as well as an overview of human culture as represented through its languages.