Part 1. What is linguistics? -- Sound of language-consonants -- Other sounds-vowels -- In the head versus on the lips -- How to make a word -- Chomskyan revolution -- Deep structure and surface structure -- On-off switches of grammar -- Shades of meaning and semantic roles -- From sentence to storytelling -- Language on its way to becoming a new one -- Recovering languages of the past -- Part 2. Where grammar comes from -- Language change from old english to now -- What is an impossible language? -- How children learn to speak -- How we learn languages as adults -- How you talk and how they talk -- How class defines speech -- Speaking differently, changing the language -- Language and gender -- Languages sharing the world-bilingualism -- Languages sharing a sentence-code-switching -- Rules of conversation -- Part 3. What is this thing called language? -- Speech as action -- Uses of talk from culture to culture -- Does language chanel thought? The evidence -- Does language chanel thought? New Findings -- Is language going to the dogs? -- Why languages are never perfect -- Evolution of writing -- Writing systems -- Doing linguistics-with a head start -- Doing linguistics-from the ground up -- Evolution of language