Share and hear poetry in many languages at this April 9 event
The event celebrates April as National Poetry Month.
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Our faculty are interested in many different aspects of language: how we speak, understand and learn language; how languages change over time; how computers can understand and generate language; and how social and cultural contexts influence language. Undergraduate and graduate students study these and other aspects of language through our diverse course offerings. Our academic programs allow students the flexibility to develop programs of study specific to their personal goals and interests.
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What do linguists study and teach?
Linguistics attempts to answer such questions as:
- How the mind enables us to produce and understand utterances
- How children acquire language
- How and why languages resemble and differ from each other
- How and why languages change over time and how they are related
- How the categories of language relate to the world
- How language use varies across different social and cultural contexts
- How to make computers talk and 'understand' human languages
Getting started...
Students interested in learning more about linguistics and its relationship to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences are encouraged to take Linguistics 1101, a general overview that is a prerequisite for most other courses in the field or one of the first-year writing seminars offered in linguistics (on topics such as metaphor, language processing and disorders, English outside the box and the language instinct). Linguistics 1101 and our other introductory courses fulfill various distribution requirements of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Most of our 1100- and 2200-level courses have no prerequisites. These cover various topics in linguistics or the historical development of particular languages:
- LING 1109 - English Words: Histories and Mysteries
- LING 2221 - Language and Society
- LING 2223 - Language and the Law
- LING 2248 - Native American Languages
- LING 2264 - Language, Mind, and Brain
- LING 2285 - Linguistic Theory and Poetic Structure
Linguistics News
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.
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Jing Gao, Ph.D. '24, Accepts Special Associate Research Fellow Position at the South China Normal University
Jing Gao, Ph.D. '24, Accepts Special Associate Research Fellow Position at the South China Normal University
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AI ring tracks spelled words in American Sign Language
A Cornell-led research team, with help from Linguistics graduate student Jane Lu, 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 (ASL).
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Jasmim Drigo, Ph.D. ’24, Accepts Postdoctoral Researcher Position at the University of Galway
Jasmim Drigo, Ph.D. ’24, Accepts Postdoctoral Researcher Position at the University of Galway
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University Lecture examines ‘The Narrative Brain’
Our minds and the ways we tell stories are closely attuned, research shows, and scholar Fritz Breithaupt will explore how that connection works during a March visit as University Lecturer.
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19th Annual Cornell Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium (CULC 19)
Cornell University's undergraduate linguistics association, The UnderLings, presents its nineteenth annual undergraduate research colloquium.
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Call for Papers: JK32
The JK32 organizing committee is pleased to invite abstracts for submission to the 32nd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference to be held at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, on June 13 – 15, 2025.
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