Linguistics, Philology & Historical Decipherment: From Syntax to Decipherment

This lecture provides a foundational introduction to the scientific study of language, covering core concepts like phonology, morphology, and syntax, essential for understanding subsequent topics.

Building on the introduction to language structure, this lecture delves deeper into generative grammar and the cognitive revolution, exploring the philosophical underpinnings of language acquisition.

Following an understanding of language structure and acquisition, this lecture introduces historical linguistics, explaining how languages evolve and diverge over time through various mechanisms.

Expanding on historical linguistics, this step focuses on practical applications, detailing efforts to revitalize endangered languages and reconstruct extinct grammars using historical documentation.

Moving beyond language structure and evolution, this lecture applies linguistic analysis to real-world discourse, examining rhetorical strategies and power dynamics in political language.

As a capstone, this lecture extends the principles of decipherment and communication analysis to interspecies communication, exploring criteria for decoding animal communication systems.