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Hi, I'm Marc van Oostendorp.

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This is Leiden University.

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Welcome to this course on
the miracles of human language.

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This is our studio where we prepared
a course full of surprises,

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full of miracles of human language.

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This course is all about diversity.

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Well, it's all about diversity,
and it's also about similarity.

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And that's because there are about
6,000 languages in the world.

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And they're diverse,
they're all different,

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but they are also similar in some way.

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How is that possible?

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That's one thing, an important thing that
we're going to explore in this course.

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And we're going to explore
this in five modules.

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In the first module, we talk about
questions like what makes language

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so typically human,

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or differentiates it from,
from animal languages, for instance.

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And we're going to see how
linguists go about their work.

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There are different kinds of linguists and
we're going to meet them.

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In the second module,
we talk about sounds of language.

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How do we produce sounds?

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How do we distinguish sounds?

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How do we organize sounds in our minds?

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In the third module,
we talk about words and sentences.

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How are languages different in
the way in which they create words?

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How are they different in the way in
which they organize words into sentences?

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In the fourth module
we talk about meaning.

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How do we give meaning to words and
sentences in human language?

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And how do languages differ in that?

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And in the fifth module, we talk
about language in its social context.

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We talk about how language is actually
used in, let's say, everyday life.

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Since this course is all about diversity,

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there's also diversity
within every module.

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It's not just me explaining things to you.

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We also have discussions with students

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and we've interviews with experts, 
with linguists from the Netherlands

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and other countries about linguistics,

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about their job.

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But most of all,
we have speakers of different languages.

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We have found six speakers of
six very different languages.

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And they will give examples of
how they speak of words and

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sentences in their language.

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And it will be up to you
to analyze those examples.

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And if you're in an advanced track 
or if you just like that kind of thing

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we also invite you to submit 
your own language,

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to make videos in which you give 
those same words and sentences

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in your own language.

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And then,
other students can analyze those.

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We also invite you to participate.

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We have an online forum
on our course page

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and if you like that kind of thing,

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we also have a Facebook group in
which you can discuss these things.

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But in any case, we hope to see you
very soon in the first module of

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our course on the miracles
of human language.