​It could be argued that language is the most complex organic tool known to evolution; it has made it possible to communicate the human experience and advance our societies. This tool not only allows us to express our own cognition but also to manipulate that of others by simply expelling air through a finite set of funny shapes in our mouths or with a flick of a wrist. Language encodes our culture, preserves our history, and is used in every facet of our lives. It is omnipresent when we dream, contemplate, express our feelings, needs, and aspirations. Yet, language production and perception are a combination of highly complex dynamic systems working in unison, acquired effortlessly before we can even do simple arithmetic. All languages are unique and adapt to fit the communicative needs of their users, which in turn, facilitate sociocultural interactions. Yet for a tool that we try to maximize to its fullest potential, there is still so much we do not understand about it.

Well, this is pretty much why I study linguistics.