First post of a new era?

So, this is my first linguistics-themed post! To celebrate, I've given the blog a redecorate since obviously guys are interested in linguistics too and I don't want to put anyone off by it being overly pink!


Let's start at the very beginning - linguistics is the scientific study of language (although it is a BA/MA rather than a BSc/MSc, which I don't wholly understand!). Linguists, confusingly enough, can be either students of languages or students of linguistics although languages =/= linguistics.


I thought I'd have a regular feature on here of 'word of the week' because enhanced vocabulary is never a bad thing and etymology is so fascinating! This week's word is the adjective perspicuous, which means clearly expressed or understood, lucid, (of a person) able to give an account or express an idea clearly (Credit: Google dictionary). Its other forms are the nouns perspicuity and perspicuousness and the adverb perspicuously. I think this is a really fascinating word in terms of etymology - it's from the Latin perspicio which means to see through sth., to perceive or discern clearly (Wiktionary), which itself really relies on spicere, to look at/see. The really interesting thing about this word though, is the other variants that have grown alongside it - from this root we also get perspective, perspicacious and even perspex. From spicere we also get conspicuous, inspect, retrospect and even expect (ex + specare, frequentative of spicere [etymonline.com])


Anyway, mustn't let myself run away with etymology! Now for today's other feature, which is a brief look over some common linguistic terms and their meanings.
Semantics - the study of meaning. This is a fascinating field as it looks beyond the actual sound a word makes but the meaning it signifies.
Morphology - the study of words! Includes how they are derived and made.
IPA - you don't commonly come across this word as such, more you come across what it refers to. IPA is an acronym for International Phonetic Alphabet which is a standardised notation system for sounds in language. For example, in IPA the name Madeleine may be written as  /ˈmadəlɛn/ .
Syntax - the study of the rules of language so that you can form sentences. I've also heard it referred to in everyday speech as grammar and punctuation although I'm not sure how correct this is.
Phonetics - the study of (how humans form) sound.
Phonology - the study of how sounds have meaning
Phoneme - the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language. For example I is a phoneme in English, being the first person. However E is just a sound.
Sociolinguistics - the study of the effect of society on language (e.g. geography, social class etc). A related field that sociologists and anthropologists study is sociology of language which is the effect of language on society.


Blogspot is getting angry that I've written so much and used bold and italics (thank you Aldus Manutius!) so I'd better leave it here for now. Three cheers for linguistics! :)