Noncompositional

Here at UCB there are a few classes that are commonly recognized as part of the essential undergad experience. They’re beginning-level survey courses taught by distinguished faculty members (do I sound like a brochure?): Intro to Astronomy (Alexei Filippenko), Drugs and the Brain (David Presti), Physics for Future Presidents (Richard Muller). Well, in today’s issue of The Daily Californian, among a list of five of the “Best Classes on Campus” is Linguistics 55AC: The American Languages.

From the official catalog:

A linguistic view of the history, society, and culture of the United States. The variety of languages spoken in our country and the issues surrounding them: language and ethnicity, politics of linguistic pluralism vs. societal monolingualism, language and education, language shift, loss, retention, and renewal. Languages include English (standard and nonstandard; Black English), pidgins and creoles, Native American languages, Spanish, French, and immigrant languages from Asia and Europe.

The recommender (Daniel Kronovet) writes,

You’ll have no idea how deep language goes until you’ve taken this course. [...] It’s everything you never knew you should know about.

So sign up! (or request that it be webcast) (but note that this semester, the instructor is Bill Weigel, not Rose Wilkerson)