Naomi Enzinna, a doctoral student in linguistics working on speech patterns

Systematic study of human language

Department of Linguistics

Linguistics, the systematic study of human language, lies at the crossroads of the humanities and the social sciences, drawing on a special combination of intuition and rigor that the analysis of language demands.

Linguistics News

Older man with glasses and gray hair talking with his hands.

‘Summit’ on LLMs rallies leading AI experts

Linguist Marten van Schijndel co-led a session on “Responsible LLMs & Issues” at the summit.

Milena Šereikaitė joins the Department of Linguistics

Milena Šereikaitė, a theoretical linguist specializing in syntax and morphology, will join the department as Assistant Professor in Fall 2025

Current Graduate Students Win Awards

Burak Öney and John Starr win Arts & Sciences awards. John Starr and Charlotte Logan win Provost Diversity Fellowship. Youngdong Cho, Yao Zhang, and Fengyue Lisa Zhao win East Asia Program fellowships.

Pink flowering tree and a stone colonade with people on the steps

Outstanding faculty win 2025 teaching and advising awards

Among those being recognized for exceptional teaching and mentorship this year are faculty members Begüm Adalet, Claudia Verhoeven, and Marcelo Aguiar.

'I mapped the humanitarian impact of the Wagner Group’s arrival in Mali'

Celia Doherty is majoring in linguistics.

Language House opens to students learning ASL

Students who want an immersive on-campus experience with American Sign Language (ASL) can now sign up to live in the Language House.

Share and hear poetry in many languages at this April 9 event

The event celebrates April as National Poetry Month.

A hand, palm out, wearing a black ring on the thumb

AI ring tracks spelled words in American Sign Language

A Cornell-led research team has developed an artificial intelligence-powered ring equipped with micro-sonar technology that can continuously and in real time track fingerspelling in American Sign Language.

See all Linguistics News

Linguistics Events

More Events

Explore Linguistics

Undergraduate Program Graduate Program Faculty Linguistics Resources Give to Linguistics

Language & the Law - LING 2223

Discover how language impacts the theory and practice of law. Topics include: origins of legal language, linguistics in the courtroom, plagiarism and language rights. This course also introduces areas of linguistics such as syntax, semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics, which explicate a wide range of legal matters where both spoken and written language come to fore.

See more Linguistics courses

1946

The year the department was founded

7117

Number of distinct languages spoken throughout the world

205

Endangered languages spoken in the United States