The purpose of the course is to enable the student to focus on the basic raw materials of human language, both in its spoken and written forms, and to explore how these are organized into language –specific systems for communication.  In doing this the student is to be exposed to a variety of language systems as well as approaches and models used in explicating aspects of such systems both at the phonological as well as at the graphological levels. Highlighted through the course unit will be the interfaces of phonetics and phonology, on the one hand, as well as that between phonology and graphology.