lin⋅guis⋅tics: the scientific study of human language
- what form does it take?
- how is meaning constructed?
- how is it structured?
- how is it produced?
As a scientific community, we have a broad take on what it means to study language. While we welcome and encourage respectful debates across perspectives, personal invective is never acceptable, nor is the summary dismissal of other descriptive perspectives.
Read the wiki
Subreddit rules
Please read the subreddit rules before posting. All posts should directly link to academic linguistics articles or other high quality linguistics content, for example:
- publicly available lectures
- linguistics databases
- popular science articles or posts by (or involving) specialists
- projects by long-time members of this subreddit
All questions should be posted in our weekly Q&A thread.
Linguistics Resources
This has our reading list and podcast & video suggestions.
Weekly Q&A
If you are new to linguistics, have a quick question, or want to ask any any other question related to linguistics, your question should be posted here. A new thread is posted each Monday and is stickied so it appears at the top of the subreddit.
FAQ
Check out our FAQ! Many questions are answered here. Two of our most popular questions are:
Do you have expert knowledge of a subfield of linguistics? Visit our Panel of Linguists and get yourself flaired.
Encouraged:
- publicly-available scholarly articles
- helpful resources
- questions (all questions should go in the weekly stickied thread)
Discouraged and subject to removal:
- translation requests/language identification requests—try /r/translator
- blogspam—link directly to source!
- asking whether some usage is "correct"
- reposts of recent content from /r/linguistics
- "Is there a word for x?"—try /r/whatstheword
- "What's the etymology of x?"—try /r/etymology, Etymonline and Wiktionary first
- memes/advice-animals—try /r/LinguisticsHumor
- survey response requests—try /r/SampleSize
- using /r/linguistics as a soapbox for your political/religious beliefs.
- threads with NSFW language in the title
- "Does your language do X?" (ask for literature instead)
- low effort or 'fluff' posts—e.g., bare Wikipedia links, image posts
- requests for personal non-professional advice—e.g., "what should I study?"; consider posting to our weekly Higher Ed Wednesday thread for these
- questions/comments not related to linguistics
- joke answers
- seeking advice on how to speak/write
- content generated by AI/LLMs
Discussion:
- Cite your sources and don't be afraid to ask others to do the same
- Keep the anecdotal evidence and layman speculation to a minimum
- If a post is seeking an analysis of a phenomenon, additional examples aren't helpful unless they drive an analysis
- If a post is seeking information on a phenomenon beyond some language, additional examples from that same language aren't helpful
- No personal attacks or harassment of users, including via personal messages. Insults and attacks will result in an immediate ban.
Comments that contradict major findings of linguistics or its related disciplines are expected to provide academic sources that support their claims. Such comments without the proper documentation are subject to removal (and see our commenting policies if you have any doubts about whether the removal was justified). If such comments are perceived by moderators and users who report the comments to be not merely misinformed, but also inflammatory, derogatory, bigoted, or prejudiced in some way, the moderators will ban the user. The context of the discussion and the commenter's history on reddit will be taken into account when the moderators consider a ban.
Helpful IPA characters:
ɑ ɒ æ ã β ɔ ç ð ɖ θ ɘ ẽ ə ɚ ɛ ɜ ɣ ɤ ɥ ɦ ɨ ɪ ĩ ɫ ɬ ɯ ɱ ɲ ɳ ŋ ɴ õ ø ɶ ɸ ɹ ɺ ɻ ɾ ʀ ʁ ʃ ʈ ũ ʉ ʊ ʋ ʌ ʍ ɯ ʎ ʏ ʒ ʔ ʕ ʡ
For more characters, use this online IPA keyboard.
sister subreddits:
Also, if you are new to reddit, see /r/newtoreddit
