One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
1A person skilled in foreign languages.
interpreter, transcriber, transliterator, paraphraser, deciphererView synonyms
- ‘He was also an accomplished linguist speaking nine foreign languages including Chinese and Tibetan.’
- ‘He was a formidable linguist, speaking 25 languages and many more dialects.’
- ‘She was a natural linguist and learnt Latin, Italian and English and studied their literatures.’
- ‘The contract linguist must be able to obtain a Top Secret security clearance and undergo a language proficiency screening.’
- ‘Surely even the best linguists have to translate first into their own language, then formulate a response and then change that back into the language in question.’
- ‘If the Brigade had more Arabic linguists, the Army would have deployed them to use their language skills.’
- ‘So why don't they just go out and, y'know, hire some sharp young linguists?’
- ‘He is an extraordinary linguist; he studied Russian at university, but he is also versed in Chinese, English and French.’
- ‘A skilled linguist, Marianne used her new-found freedom to become an interpreter for the British Army.’
- ‘And because of increased force projection requirements, the need for skilled linguists is growing.’
- ‘Contract linguists, many of them native speakers, were quickly hired as well, but problems with them persist.’
- ‘Our civilian contract linguist broke the language barrier.’
2A person who studies linguistics.
- ‘Critical linguists agree that language is constitutive - that it is the site where meanings are produced.’
- ‘He is, after all, a distinguished professor at MIT and the most renowned linguist of the 20th century.’
- ‘But it's shocking that linguistics and linguists haven't been celebrated in the titles of music and films.’
- ‘Some linguists classify the Gullah language, spoken in the North Carolina islands, as a pidgin that is based on West African syntax.’
- ‘Descriptive linguists try to lay out a statement of what the conditions are for particular languages.’
- ‘The handler was displaying the usual slippage between folk conceptions of language and we linguists ' conceptions of same.’
- ‘Especially during the heyday of Bloomfieldian structuralism, linguists were scathing of conceptual definitions of word classes.’
- ‘These categories, he says, are imposed because the languages that western linguists are familiar with have them.’
- ‘This explosion of linguistic novelty has sent linguists reeling, a bit.’
- ‘I hope these examples are useful to linguists who are studying this topic.’
- ‘There are about 24 Dravidian languages recognized by linguists.’
- ‘He does have a list of books that he consults on a regular basis, but the trained eye will note that not one of them is a book by a professional linguist or even about linguistics.’
- ‘Some linguists have expressed concern that learning a foreign language too early may impact unfavourably on learners' native tongue acquisition.’
- ‘These are the aspects of language that linguists refer to as ‘universal grammar’.’
- ‘But language is defined by linguists as more than just the use of symbols, whether vocalized or not.’
- ‘Languages are becoming extinct, and many have never been studied by linguists.’
- ‘Ever since then, linguists have found all sorts of evidence that these far-flung languages must have sprung from some common source.’
- ‘Thus, linguists have usually treated language as an abstract object which can be accounted for without reference to social concerns of any kind.’
- ‘Many linguists argue instead that language arose independently of music.’
- ‘Biologists and linguists agree that language is an important species-specific property.’
Late 16th century: from Latin lingua ‘language’ + -ist.
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