This page will be devoted to information about a new course to be given next Spring, called Mathematics From Language. The official number of the course is X385, and it will be at the junior-senior level.

The course is intended to introduce mathematics to people who are students in English, foreign languages, cognitive science, linguistics, etc. The idea is that large parts of mathematics can be motivated using examples taken entirely from linguistics. For example, we can study the mathematics of grammar, leading to abstract algebra. In another direction, we could learn the basics of statistics by looking at statistical work on texts. Finally, computational linguistics can be the entrance point for some areas of both computer science and linguistics.

This summer, Hans-Jörg Tiede of the Linguistics Department and I are preparing the course. We hope to use this page for information about the course, the requirements, outlines, projects, etc.

The course is part of the initiative called Mathematics Throughout the Curriculum that is organizing many interesting interdisciplinary courses, both here and on other IU campuses.