Okayama University Faculty of Letters

This major aims to not only conduct in-depth research on the various languages of Asia and Europe, but to uncover the common principles at work behind seemingly heterogeneous phenomena found in multiple languages. We hope our students learn as many languages as possible and to consider both the diversity and the universality of those languages. Our major has experts of languages, such as General Linguistics, Japanese Language Studies, English Language Studies, French Language Studies, Korean Language Studies, Turkish Language Studies, Filipino Language Studies, and Japanese Language Education. With rigorous, yet entertaining coursework, our major aims to: i) introduce students to the workings of Asian and European languages; ii) inquiry the role of structure and meaning in these languages and investigate their historical changes; iii) study interactions/exchanges between languages as well as relationships languages possess with societies, cultures and each individual; and iv) uncover the universal principles that underlie all human languages.