Ferdinand de Saussure
The starting point of modern linguistics. The Course in General Linguistics (1916) — from the overview to a plain-language walkthrough and a close look at its central distinction.
Saussure and the Birth of Linguistics
Reading the background of Course in General Linguistics and its opening survey of linguistic history.
Saussure's Course in General Linguistics: An Overview
Langue and parole, the arbitrary sign, synchrony and diachrony, value as difference — an overview of the lectures that reshaped how the twentieth century thought about language.
Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, Explained — Part 1: What Language Is, and What a Sign Is
Language is not a list of names for things. A slower walk through the line Saussure drew between langue and parole, and the idea that a sign is a concept joined to a sound.
Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, Explained — Part 2: How the System Works, and How It Changes
A word's meaning is fixed by its difference from its neighbours. Synchrony and diachrony, value as difference, syntagmatic and associative relations, then sound change, analogy and waves — with everyday examples.
Langage, Langue, Parole — Why Saussure Split "Language" in Three
The most famous distinction in the Course, quoting the French original: the speaking-circuit, "1 + 1 + … = 1", and the symphony.
The Arbitrary Sign — Why a Tree Can Just as Well Be Baum or Arbre
There is no inner tie between the idea "sister" and the run of sounds s—ö—r. Saussure's first principle, read from the 1916 French original.
Synchrony and Diachrony — a Language as a Present-Tense System, or as a Current
A position in chess is free of the moves that produced it. Saussure split language into two axes. Read alongside Sapir's "drift" — the other answer to the same divide.
Value and Difference — "In a Language There Are Only Differences"
French mouton can have the same meaning as English sheep, but not the same value — because English also has mutton. The most radical chapter of the Course, read from the French.