Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves analysing language form, language meaning, language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between meaning. Linguistics deals with the social, cultural and political factors that influence language, through which linguistic and language-based context is determined. Research on language through the sub-branches of historical and evolutionary linguistics focuses on how languages change and grow over an extended period of time; the earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been attributed to the 6th-century-BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī. Related areas of study include the disciplines of semiotics, literary criticism and speech-language pathology. Historical linguistics is the study of language change over time with regards to a specific language or group of languages. Historical linguistics was among the first sub-disciplines to emerge in linguistics, was the most practised form of linguistics in the late 19th century.

There was a shift of focus in the early twentieth century to the synchronic approach, but historical research remained a field of linguistic inquiry. Subfields include language grammaticalisation studies. Western modern historical linguistics dates from the late 18th century, it grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics as a tool for linguistic reconstruction. Scholars were concerned chiefly with establishing language families and reconstructing prehistoric proto-languages, using the comparative method and internal reconstruction; the focus was on the well-known Indo-European languages, many of which had long written histories. Since there has been significant comparative linguistic work expanding outside of European languages as well, such as on the Austronesian languages and various families of Native American languages, among many others.

Comparative linguistics is now, only a part of a more broadly conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a specialized field. Most research is being carried out on the subsequent development of these languages, in particular, the development of the modern standard varieties; some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, for example, Indo-European and other families into Nostratic. These attempts have not been accepted widely; the information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as the time depth is increased. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited due to chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is assumed; the dating of the various proto-languages is difficult. Syntax and morphology are branches of linguistics concerned with the order and structure of meaningful linguistic units such as words and morphemes. Syntacticians study the rules and constraints that govern how speakers of a language can organize words into sentences.

Morphologists study similar rules for the order of morphemes—sub-word units such as prefixes and suffixes—and how they may be combined to form words. While words, along with clitics, are accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, in most languages, if not all, many words can be related to other words by rules that collectively describe the grammar for that language. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog and dogs are related, differentiated only by the plurality morpheme "-s", only found bound to noun phrases. Speakers of English, a fusional language, recognize these relations from their innate knowledge of English's rules of word formation, they infer intuitively. By contrast, Classical Chinese has little morphology, using exclusively unbound morphemes and depending on word order to convey meaning; these are understood as grammars. The rules understood by a speaker reflect specific patterns or regularities in the way words are formed from smaller units in the language they are using, how those smaller units interact in speech.

In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation within and across languages and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages. Phonological and orthographic modifications between a base word and its origin may be partial to literacy skills. Studies have indicated that the presence of modification in phonology and orthography makes morphologically complex words harder to understand and that the absence of modification between a base w

Theodore Michael "Ted" Leonard is an American vocalist and guitarist, best known as the lead singer for the progressive rock band Enchant. He has provided lead vocals for Thought Chamber, as of 2011, Spock's Beard. Leonard's influences include Paul Rodgers, Doug Pinnick/King's X, Steve Walsh/Kansas, Rush, Tears for Fears, Neal Morse, Steve Perry, Queensrÿche. Way Home A Blueprint of the World Wounded Time Lost Break Juggling 9 Or Dropping 10 Blink of an Eye Tug of War Live at Last The Great Divide Live at High Voltage Festival Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep The Oblivion Particle Noise Floor Angular Perceptions Psykerion 84.000 Dharma Doors Harmagedon Reflections - An Act of Glass KaLIVEoscope Jesus Christ - The Exorcist Enchant official website Spock's Beard official website

The Colombia national football team represents Colombia in men's international football competitions and it's governed by the Colombian Football Federation. It is a member of the CONMEBOL and is ranked 10th in the FIFA World Rankings; the team are nicknamed Los Cafeteros due to the coffee production in their country. Since the mid-1980s, the national team has been a symbol fighting the country's negative reputation; this has made the sport popular and made the national team a sign of nationalism and passion for many Colombians worldwide. Colombia is known for having a passionate fan base. Colombia had its strongest period during the 1990s. A 1993 match resulted in a 5–0 win over Argentina which began a special "mutual respect" rivalry between both nations; the goalkeeper René Higuita achieved fame from his eccentric scorpion kick clearance against England at Wembley Stadium in 1995. Stars from Colombia's team included Faustino Asprilla. During this era Colombia qualified for the 1990, 1994, 1998 World Cups, only reaching the second round in 1990.

Following the murder of Andrés Escobar after the 1994 World Cup, Colombia's team faded in the latter half of the 1990s. They were the champions of the 2001 Copa América, which they hosted and set a new Copa América record of conceding no goals and winning each match. Prior to that success, they were runners-up to Peru in the 1975 Copa América. In total, Colombia has gained a top four result in seven Copa Américas. Colombia was the first team to win FIFA best mover in 1993 where the achievement was first introduced and the second team after Croatia to win it twice in 2012. Colombia missed three World Cups between 2002 and 2010. During the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, Colombia showed improvement over the 2011 Copa América, bringing its rank up to the top ten for the first time since 2002 and into the top five for the first time since 2004. After a 16-year-long wait, in 2014 Colombia returned to the World Cup, where they were able to advance to the quarter-finals, the furthest Colombia has made it in a World Cup.

Colombia's midfielder James Rodríguez won two awards, the Golden Boot for most goals and Best Goal of the Tournament. Colombia played its first official matches at Caribbean Games; the Colombia national football team was composed by all the players of the Club Juventud Bogotana. Alfonso Novoa was the manager of Colombia until 23 February; the first game was played on 10 February 1938 against Mexico. Colombia was defeated 1–3. Colombia was able to obtain the bronze medal, with three losses; the same year, Colombia played at the I Bolivarian Games in Bogotá, where they finished fourth with one win and three losses. Fernando Paternoster was the manager of the side's first foreign manager. Colombia did not play again until 1945, when they participated for the first time at the South American Championship, finishing in fifth place; this time, Colombia was composed by players of Junior de Barranquilla save for Antonio de la Hoz and Pedro Ricardo López. Roberto Meléndez was coach of Colombia throughout the tournament.

The first match of Colombia in the professional era was played on 6 April in the 1949 South American Championship, a 3–0 defeat against Paraguay. Austrian coach Friedrich Donnenfeld was the manager of Colombia during the tournament; as Junior was chosen to represent Colombia in the tournament, he became in the first European manager of the Colombia national team. The team, repeated their losing streak since, as in the previous tournament, ended eighth with two draws and five losses, scoring four goals. After a withdrawal in 1938 and getting banned in 1954, Colombia participated for the first time in qualifying for the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden, their first match was on 16 June 1957 against Uruguay in a 1 -- 1 draw. Colombia lost their next matches. Colombia qualified for the 1962 World Cup, its first FIFA World Cup by eliminating Peru 2–1 on aggregate. At the 1962 World Cup, Colombia was drawn into a tough group containing Uruguay, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Colombia lost 2 -- 1 against Uruguay.

Luis Cubilla and Jorge Sasía scored for Uruguay at the 56th and 75th minute while Francisco Zuluaga scored a 19th-minute penalty goal for Colombia to give the Colombians their first World Cup goal and a shock lead. In the second match, they earned a 4–4 draw with the USSR, champions of the 1960 European Nations' Cup. In this game, Colombia scored four goals against Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin considered the best goalkeeper in football history. In that game, Marcos Coll scored the only olympic goal in World Cup history so far; the Colombian campaign in 1962 ended with a 5–0 defeat against Yugoslavia, who finished in fourth place in the tournament. After the 1962 World Cup, Colombia didn't qualify for over 28 years before they returned at 1990 edition. At 1990 World Cup, Colombia was once again drawn with the Yugoslavs, alongside United Arab Emirates and powerhouse West Germany. Colombia defeated 2–0 to the United Arab Emirates to make its first win in the World Cup lost to Yugoslavia 1–0, but earned their place in the round of 16 after a respectable 1–1 draw with West Germany, who would win the Worl