Lecture 1. The foundations of language: brain, development, acquisition

Lecture 2. Signs and meanings: semantics

Lecture 3. Sounds of language: phonetics

Lecture 4. Sound and meaning: phonology

Lecture 5. Sound shifts and history

Lecture 6. The rules: syntax

Lecture 7. Words, words, words

Lecture 8. The history of the English language

Lecture 9. From Germanic to Old English

Lecture 10. Borrowing and influence: Romans, Celts, Danes (Latin, Celtic, Scandinavian)

Lecture 11. The Norman Conquest, the influence of French, and the development of Middle English

Lecture 12. To Modern English: the Great Vowel Shift

Lecture 13: You say soda, I say pop: dialect, variants, and the development of American English

Lecture 14. A global language: the present and future of English.