EGMT 1520: What is a word?

What is a word? This may seem like an easy question to answer. After all, we all use words all day long, and have been for years. Still, just try to define a simple one—it's very difficult to pin down the many meanings of a word like "set". And consider how ephemeral words are: is a written word the same thing as a spoken one? Do words (and the meaning they carry) last any longer than our fading breath? To better understand the nature of words and language, in this course, we will study the various ingenious ways that humans have devised to pin down words. Over the course of seven weeks, we will consider how humans make words in our brains and in our mouths. We will study the history of dictionaries, to wrap our heads around how words and their origins can really be known. We will look at the history of writing and its organization, visiting the rare books library to see the treasures of UVA's holdings. We will even try our hands at such ancient writing methods as making our own manuscripts on vellum with real quill and ink, trying cuneiform, and using an old school typewriter. By the end of our time together, students will see how something as deeply human as language can be approached scientifically, and how adding to our own word hoards (a word I borrow from the Beowulf poet) sets us up to appreciate words wherever and whenever we meet them in life.