LING 134 Languages of Central Eurasia: Writing Systems, Policy, and Identity

Examines how the innate human faculty for language intersects with the invented technology of writing in the entangled historical and cultural landscape of Central Eurasia. Students analyze the linguistic structures and orthographic evolutions of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic peoples, and examine how migration, trade, and 21st-century geopolitics drive linguistic change and identity.