Linguistics

Linguistics is the name of an academic subject. (For some difficulties in meaning, see linguistic.)

Linguistics is "The science of languages; philology" (OED, s.v. linguistic[ a. and n., B. n. [-IC 2.]). Definitions tend to concentrate on "the scientific" or "systematic" "study of language". The academic subject is indeed a science, and concentrates on the theoretical understanding of human languages, and the practical applications of the theory. Its branches include grammar, or the systematic study of structure; etymology, or the study of the history and origin of words and the languages they compose; phonetics, or the study of the sounds of languages; and semantics, or the study of the meanings of words. Linguists, or linguistic, study such things as children's acquisition of language, sociolinguistics, accent and dialect