Linguistics is the study of language.

Some topics in theoretical linguistics

• Phonetics - human sounds
• Phonology - sounds of a particular language
• Morphology - words and word structure
• Syntax - combinations of words; grammar
• Semantics - meaning of words and combinations of words
• Pragmatics - context and meaning
• Linguistic typology - classification of languages by features
• Historical linguistics/comparative linguistics - language changes
  • Etymology - word origins
  • Genetic classification of languages - grouping languages into language families

Related and cross-discipline topics

• Philology - study of ancient texts
• Sociolinguistics - effect of society on language
• Linguistic anthropology - study of humans through their language
• Neurolinguistics - underlying brain mechanisms that enable learning/use of language
• Psycholinguistics - mental/behavioural factors that enable human learning/use of language
• Computational linguistics