Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

I took this course to gain a basic, beginning-level understanding (not for credit), and it did provide me that. Overall, I enjoyed the learning opportunity. I wish I could give a better rating, but unfortunately there were some aspects of the mechanics of it that I found frustrating. Without going into detail, I'd summarize them as follows: quiz and exam questions that dealt with nitpicky details or things that were not covered sufficiently; possible errors in the material and quizzes; lack of response to requests for help on how to do something or where to find something (never did find the explanation of the IPA exercise and still don't understand it); and videos, interviews and discussions that lack precise information.

There are a couple of issues that I'd like to say a little more about. (1) While Chomsky is highly regarded and somewhat entertaining, he was all over the place on what he was actually saying. After talking about something for quite a while, he'd say something to the effect of—this is just my opinion and not too many people agree with me. (2) Likewise, there was a series of readings in which one writer discredited the one before, and that made it hard for me as a beginner to the field to draw any informative conclusions. (3) While I think the idea of students discussing topics and questions is a good one, I found that the student cohorts are moving at different paces and are not coming back to the discussions at the same time, and also are not going back and looking at topics from previous weeks to see if there has been some discussion about one of my (or their own or others') comments. Can't blame them; I, too, wanted to keep moving on. But this meant the forums were not really discussions. Also, without an instructor or advanced student participating, there was no one to correct misinformation. (4) I found the informants' presentations very interesting and, well, informative! But in order to pass the quiz/exam, one had to spend a lot of time trying to compare tiny details in foreign languages. (5) The video by Labov that replaced his article did not contain any charts, so there was no reference for answering one of the final exam questions.

A final suggestion. I have written several online courses on Genealogy, and I was required to indicate precisely where in the material the answer to each exam question could be found. Even if this information is not shared with the students, I think the exercise of the quiz/test preparer doing that would tighten up the way the material is presented and would make for a more satisfying learning experience.

I've always been passionate about language, and I am very grateful that this MOOC provided me with the opportunity to gain some beginner-level insights into the field of linguistics. The lecture videos were fantastic - short, to the point, and giving a good general overview. The difficulty level and pace were perfect: very informative, without being overwhelming - perfect for some "casual learning" on the side. I also enjoyed the forum discussions. That being said, I do have one important criticism: questions in the weekly quizzes suffered from ambiguous wording. This was brought to the course owners' attention every single week after every single quiz. Some questions were reworded, but a lot of ambiguity remained. Sometimes correct answers were incorrectly marked. Over the duration of the course, this didn't really improve, and was present in the final exam. Maybe the problem is that I have a background in the "hard sciences", so my expectation is that if you have a great understanding of the matter taught through the videos/readings, following logic/reasoning, you should be able to select the correct multiple choice answer(s) with 100% certainty, and that, sadly, wasn't the case. (I can give specific examples if required.) So while the course itself was fun and informative, the feeling remains that in the end we all fought the quizzes/final exam rather than fighting to conquer the subject matter. I would certainly take part in further courses, but my hope is that the quizzes and exams would receive a greater degree of QA/testing before going live.

A good course with many interesting and unique insights into the field of Linguistics. The language informants was a good idea. As hearing and seeing how different languages and cultures differ and are similar is a very nice addition to the course. The lecturer is clearly very passionate about the subject and this helps the motivation of the learners. However, this course misses the 5 stars for the following reasons:

Firstly, the quizzes/assignments are very specific in their questions on things that were very briefly mentioned in the lectures and by the language informants. Reducing the requirement of completion from the current 80% minimum to, say, 70% would allow for a general understanding of concepts and not specific questions on ideas and sounds that are very briefly mentioned. I would find myself writing down several of the correct answers to questions somewhere so I could use them on my 3rd try at some of the quizzes. Also, many of the readings are not available anymore and therefore the questions relating to these are very hard.

Secondly, this may seem like an introductory course, but I think that the time it takes to complete and the level of the questions asked does not relate much to this definition of introductory. A different name to the course may better reflect the detail that some readings, questions from quizzes and linguistic analysis of different languages require.

Finally, I believe the course was created around 2015. It would be great to get updates on some of the research that was being discussed now that the course is close to its 10-year anniversary.

I'm so mad at this course. First I wrote 'bad' by mistake but actually that's true as well. I only passed the tests for the second-third time and it made me so frustrated because I had been really looking forward to learn linguistics, paid attention to the videos, read the additional material and, I haven't really had any difficulties with Coursera courses so far.
What especially annoyed me was the tests that contained all those totally irrelevant questions about the informants which, as I see it, should have been only examples, while the more useful stuff was merely mentioned in the those silly, superficial professor-students discussions so it was quite hard to recall them for the tests.
I don't wanna sound rude because everyone who's been on the screen during this course seemed to be very nice people but the material was just badly structured. Anyway, I finished the course after all (it took me almost 4 months), not because I enjoyed it very much but because I didn't want to give it up, and that's the true miracle (of human language).

This course, which I just completed, is the first course I have taken on Coursera. I was taking it out of pure interest and not for credit. I have taken many courses on-line since 2004 mainly from the Yale On-line Free undergraduate course selection. I do this with a friend of my same septogenarian age. We use our Sunday dog walks as our discussion group, and it has been a great addition to my life. So, enough of introduction and on to the review of The Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics.
I very much enjoyed the course and learned a lot of the basic terminology of the field. It also introduced me to some of the questions and methodologies of linguistic scholars. From the formation of basic sounds (phonetics and phonology) to the meaning and real world use of language (semantics and pragmatics) the course covered a lot of ground. The Professor and his grad student participants were clear and cogent in their presentations and discussions. I found the course well organized and the required readings easy to comprehend and not too time consuming (though a bit difficult to track down as some of the links to the material were broken over the years the course has been around.) The tests were another matter altogether.
Being educated in the United States and a physician I feel I am an expert in the useless field of taking multiple choice tests. The tests for this course were baffling and left me wondering how and by whom they were written. Sometimes it felt that different grad students may have written different questions, and they varied from extremely nit-picky to obscure. The form of the questions was also problematic as sometimes the learner was asked to choose from only three choices to as many as 9 choices. Also, some of the questions were of the one right answer type and others were of the choose all that apply variety. That being said, I did feel that the tests after a while became part of the challenge of taking this course which I found myself warming to which may speak to my stubborn streak as a student who is determined to do well on tests even when there is no earthly reason to do so. On the final exam there was one question in which NONE of the choices turned out to be considered the right answer. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on this as I took the test enough times to prove this. I still think the correct answer is Phonology which is a choice as well as Sociolinguistics which was not a choice. It was good to read other people's reviews to see that I was not alone in my views of the tests.
I did find the 6 informants to be fascinating in their demonstrations of their very differennt languages, from Tarifit Berber to Mandarin to Basque and three others. Especially on the unit that discussed linquistic politeness the informants presented interesting material on the intersection of language, culture, and individual personality. No wonder that there are so many misunderstandings on the world scene of diplomacy, business, and intercultural romance.
I did find the assignments to interact with other students on-line interesting but frustrating as other reviewers have mentioned. This is because there is so little coordination of timing of posting a comment and getting a response. Having said that, I did learn a lot from my fellow students from all over the world which was a real joy. As a native speaker of English I had never thought about the confusing meaning of the idiom, to learn something "by heart." A non-native English speaker brought this up and I felt that alone was worth the effort of taking the course and led me to do research on that phrase.
So, though the course was not perfect, for me it was a fascinating and exciting introduction to linguistics.

I'm a linguistics nerd, so I thoroughly enjoy courses that discuss linguistic concepts. I liked the setup of the course into six units, addressing very relevant topics in linguistics. The accompanying videos were entertaining, including the native speaker informant ones. I also appreciated the module on language and the brain, with the inclusion of aphasia. I don't agree with the presented belief that human language has evolved out of animal communication (through evolution).
Two suggestions for improvement. The last unit on sociolinguistics was a little disappointing. I had expected to find some more content on dialectal differences and maybe even disappearing languages in the videos, but instead we got a ton of information on the concept of "face", which I think belongs more to the field of pragmatics, which was part of an earlier module.
Second, some of the quiz questions dealt with translations of the informants' data, which (compared to the question presented) didn't make a lot of sense to me. I conscientiously wrote down the phrases in the original languages, and analyzed those, but didn't always pay close attention to the exact translations.

I found this course fun and interesting especially for someone who is just dipping his toes in the world of linguistics in a broad sense. The videos and the content were varied and interesting and in general, seemed relevant and up to date.

Some of the material and reading lists are a bit out of date and now behind a paywall or unavailable, but in general, the supplemental material is good.

I do have a problem with some of the quizzes and the value of some of the language informants' contributions (knowing and having to study the family terms, for example, seemed pointless in the grand scheme of things) and it felt like for a couple of the units a theme for the informants was shoehorned in, without perhaps an obvious link to the unit as a whole.

The quizzes were at times baffling, the 3rd required trial and error as some of the questions were so badly constructed.

there are also some accuracy issues with the videos, editing anomalies and little attention to detail points that should have been picked up. I would hope that someone is reviewing the course periodically, but I appreciate this course and the MOOC model is already feeling a bit out of date given the proliferation of other online options these days.

All in all, however, I'm glad I took the course and in terms of finding things that I am more or less interested in, it was a great exercise.

The course builds up through videos, discussions with students, interviews with specialists, reading articles and also some practical elements of analyzing deferent languages, some familiar and some of them less familiar like Tarifit Berber. The videos with the lectures were very beneficial, but I found it very hard to follow through the different new concepts terms. In that way it was very challenging. If there were kind of written presentations for the different term I think it would have been nor clear. I felt like I have gaps of information. Also the tests were very hard, with tough multiple choice questions and with analyzing unfamiliar languages. Over all, the marital was very interesting and it made me curious to learn more. It takes a lot of effort, so I recommend it only if one has the time for it. I will gladly take a course like that again, because it gives me a chance to things my way and on my time which is great.

I genuinely loved this course. The videos are informative without being patronising, but also don't feel too overwhelming or high of a level for someone who hasn't studied linguistics at university level. The professor is friendly and welcoming, and it is structured in a logical way.

For me it loses a star on a couple of points: many of the required reading links are now broken, as this course is a few years old, and this means we have to simply guess at answers in the tests as there is no way to read them. Additionally all suggested readings are books that cost hundreds, which makes them inaccessible to people who might want to learn more; it would be great if it had links to more free articles or affordable books. It was also really annoying that on repeating a quiz, it didn't remember the questions you got right, so you had to answer them all again instead of focusing on the areas you needed to improve - though I imagine this is an issue with Coursera and not the specific course itself. It would also have been great to be provided with an easy to refer to glossary of terms taught, for future/exam reference.

Overall I am very glad that I took this course, and I wish that there was a follow up!

I really enjoyed this course!
I was always interested in languages and this was a first linguistics course I took.
The course is logical, well structured for beginners - easy enough to understand, challenging enough to make you actually sit, read, study and do your own investigation.
Preparing for this course exams made me realise how much interested I am in linguistics and, to be honest, I am already reading Leiden University's website, trying to find linguistics studies I could attend.
I would advise this course to everyone interested in language development, acquisition, social linguistics, or finding out more about the structure and functioning of other languages in the world.
I really hope to see the intermediate level course as the continuation of this one, made by the same people (which I grew fond of) - prof. Marc van Oostendorp, Martin and Inge.
Thank you for helping me find my interest (and possibly vocation)!