This book is a comprehensive advanced introduction to linguistics, unique in its integration of variation and change with the more structural or synchronic topics. It includes chapters on variation and change in lexicon, phonology, and syntax. It also covers the topics of pidgins and creoles, on first and second language acquisition, on the development of language in the human species, and on the growth of writing, printing in information technology and how these have affected, and continue to affect, language. Key features include: integration of variation and change; new treatment of functional and typological approaches to syntax; emphasis on the widest possible diversity of languages. It offers alternative ways of looking at language.