Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction considers a subject that falls in the gap between arts and science, on the edges of which fascinating discoveries and important problems are found. Beginning with the oldest, ‘arts’ end of the subject, it moves chronologically through to the newest research — the ‘science’ aspects. Themes included are: the prehistory of languages and their common origins; language and evolution; language in time and space (the nature of change inherent in language) grammars and dictionaries (how systematic is language?) and phonetics. Explication of the newest discoveries relating to language in the brain completes the coverage of major aspects of linguistics.