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Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. As linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language, it is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science, or part of the humanities.

Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social context contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as evolutionary linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions.

Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics (including traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with understanding the fundamental nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it. Applied linguistics seeks to utilise the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy.

Linguistic phenomena may be studied through a variety of perspectives: synchronically (describing a language at a specific point of time) or diachronically (through historical development); in monolinguals or multilinguals; children or adults; as they are learned or already acquired; as abstract objects or cognitive structures; through texts or oral elicitation; and through mechanical data collection versus fieldwork. (Full article...)

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் is believed to be unique to Tamil and Malayalam

Tamil is a Dravidian language related to Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, among others. As one of the few living classical languages, it has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia, with the earliest writings having been dated to circa 500 B.C. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is agglutinative and the writing is largely phonetic. It is spoken by a majority of people in Tamil Nadu and northern and north-eastern Sri Lanka, while a significant emigrant population lives in Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of the world. It is officially recognised in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and South Africa. (more...)

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:

The number 605 in Khmer Numerals

... that the world's largest mathematical experiment, designed by Brian Butterworth, found women to be faster than men at subitizing?
... that Khmer numerals were the first material evidence of the figure zero as a numerical figure?
... that in the English plural, the letter -s is pronounced differently in words like "cats", "cabs", and "buses", because of a phonological rule?
...that the 2005 movie The Interpreter by film director Sydney Pollack was based on real-life conference interpreters from the United Nations Interpretation Service?
... that Samuel Taylor Coleridge spelled William Shakespeare's last name as "Shakspere"?