A lively and thought-provoking introduction to the main discoveries and theories about the nature and wonder of language.

Ian Roberts has taught in Switzerland, Wales and Germany, and is currently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. He has published six monographs and two textbooks, and has edited several collections of articles.

Introduction; 1. How to make noises - phonetics; 2. How to organise noises - phonology; 3. How to build a word - morphology; 4. How to say absolutely anything you want to - syntax; 5. How to build a world - semantics; 6. How to influence people - pragmatics; 7. How to find lost languages - historical linguistics; 8. How to influence the right people - sociolinguistics; 9. How to lose a language and how to learn a language - psycholinguistics; 10. How to build a language - language typology and universals.