A linguist is a person who studies language and how it works, including sounds, grammar, and meaning. The word can also refer to someone who knows and uses several languages well.
It comes from Latin “lingua,” meaning “tongue” or “language,” through French “linguiste.” The idea shifted from simply knowing languages to scientifically studying how they function.
Linguists don’t usually spend their time correcting grammar; they’re more interested in why people say things the way they do. To a linguist, slang, texting, and even mistakes are valuable clues about how language is constantly changing in real time.
Academic linguistics, like many sciences, was dominated by men in its early institutional history, and women linguists’ contributions were often under-credited or attributed to male colleagues. Over time, more women and nonbinary scholars have shaped the field, but citation patterns and canons have sometimes lagged in recognizing them.
Use ‘linguist’ as a gender-neutral term and avoid assuming a linguist’s gender; refer to specific individuals with their stated pronouns and titles. When giving examples, include diverse linguists rather than only canonical male figures.
["language researcher","language specialist"]
Women linguists such as Noam Chomsky’s collaborator Carol Chomsky, sociolinguist Labov’s contemporaries like Gillian Sankoff, and many others have made foundational contributions that are often less publicly recognized than those of male colleagues.
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