linguists
They study tongues
Linguists are people who study language—its structure, history, and how it functions in human communication.
The term covers both academic specialists (The linguist analyzed vowel shifts in medieval French) and people skilled in multiple languages (The embassy hired linguists fluent in Arabic and Farsi).
The scholarly and practical senses often overlap.
Language's structural rules
- constituentsParts of a whole
- dependencyState of needing support
- transformationalCausing radical change
- generativeAble to produce or create
Chomsky · clause · recursion · agreement · subject-verb · embedding · binding · movement
Minimal sound distinctions
- allophonesPositional sound variants
- articulationClear vocal expression
- vowelsLetters with unblocked airflow
- consonantsLetters that aren't vowels
intonation · prosody · phonology · stress · pitch · accent · spectrogram · nasality
Regional language variations
- variationChange from a norm
- registerRecord officially; vocal range
- code-switchingAlternating between linguistic varieties
- multilingualismMultiple language proficiency
prestige · vernacular · pidgins · creoles · endangerment · identity · gender · accommodation
Underground nutrient absorbers
- proto-languagesReconstructed linguistic ancestors
- loanwordsAdopted foreign vocabulary
- cognatesWords from common origin
- neologismsNewly invented words
philology · diachronic · reconstruction · Indo-European · borrowing · archaism · attestation · derivation
What something signifies
- pragmaticsLanguage-in-context study
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
- referenceDirecting attention elsewhere
- presuppositionImplicit prior assumption
polysemy · synonymy · antonymy · ambiguity · metaphor · metonymy · lexicon · connotation
Systematic fact-finding effort
- fieldworkResearch conducted on location
- professorsHighest-ranking university instructors
- publicationsWorks issued to readers
- conferencesOrganized professional assemblies
journals · doctoral · tenure · corpus · documentation · descriptive · theoretical · applied
Evolving system between tongues
- inputData received for processing
- mothereseInfant-directed speech register
- overgeneralizationUnwarranted broad application
- immersionState of being submerged
transfer · fossilization · stages · babbling · nativist · interactionist
grammar
Language's structural rules
- constituentsParts of a whole
- dependencyState of needing support
- transformationalCausing radical change
generative · Chomsky · clause · recursion · agreement · subject-verb · embedding · binding · movement · case
phonemes
Minimal sound distinctions
- allophonesPositional sound variants
- articulationClear vocal expression
- vowelsLetters with unblocked airflow
consonants · intonation · prosody · phonology · stress · pitch · accent · spectrogram · nasality · voicing
dialects
Regional language variations
- variationChange from a norm
- registerRecord officially; vocal range
- code-switchingAlternating between linguistic varieties
multilingualism · prestige · vernacular · pidgins · creoles · endangerment · identity · gender · accommodation · diglossia
roots
Underground nutrient absorbers
- proto-languagesReconstructed linguistic ancestors
- loanwordsAdopted foreign vocabulary
- cognatesWords from common origin
neologisms · philology · diachronic · reconstruction · Indo-European · borrowing · archaism · attestation · derivation · calque
meaning
What something signifies
- pragmaticsLanguage-in-context study
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
- referenceDirecting attention elsewhere
presupposition · polysemy · synonymy · antonymy · ambiguity · metaphor · metonymy · lexicon · connotation · denotation
research
Systematic fact-finding effort
- fieldworkResearch conducted on location
- professorsHighest-ranking university instructors
- publicationsWorks issued to readers
conferences · journals · doctoral · tenure · corpus · documentation · descriptive · theoretical · applied · computational
interlanguage
Evolving system between tongues
- inputData received for processing
- mothereseInfant-directed speech register
- overgeneralizationUnwarranted broad application
immersion · transfer · fossilization · stages · babbling · nativist · interactionist
- notable peoplepoliticians, artists, leaders, writers, scientists
- word loverslogophile, logophiles, word nerd, word nerds, wordsmith
- philologistsphilologists, grammarians, etymologists, classicists, Latin scholars
- AnthropologistsMargaret Mead, anthropologists, ethnographers, ethnologists, paleoanthropologists
- codebreakerscodebreaker, codebreakers, cryptanalysts, decoders, cryptanalyst
- MythologistsJoseph Campbell
linguistsprescriptivists
Language correctness advocates
laypeople · monolinguals · monoglots · illiterates · native speakers
linguistsmathematicians
Those who study numbers
physicists · chemists · biologists · engineers · economists
- linguistic isolationSeparation through unshared speech
- linguistic atlasMaps showing speech patterns
- linguistic purismResistance to language change
- linguistic diffusionTransmission of speech features
- forensic linguisticsLanguage analysis for courts
- linguistic hybridityFusion of language elements
linguist, linguistic, linguistics, linguistically, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguist, sociolinguistic, ethnolinguistic