Are you fascinated by the world's multiple and diverse scripts? Want to know how Chinese characters work? What's up with the backwards letters in Russian? How do you read Arabic? In this compact but structured crash course, we will take a look at the world's various writing systems. This is a fast-paced tour of the globe and the diverse ways in which people write languages. By the end of this class, you'll understand how the following writing systems all work: European alphabets (Latin, extended/adapted Latin alphabets, Cyrillic, Greek, Caucasian alphabets), Arabic and Hebrew abjads, Indian and South Asian abugidas including Devanagari and Tamil, East Asian scripts (Chinese, Japanese, and the Korean alphabet), ancient/extinct scripts including Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and Mayan glyphs. Will briefly visit undecipherable scripts and the fascinating idea of the invention of writing. If time permits, you'll apply your knowledge and skills in the creation of your own script!

In this class, you CREATE YOUR OWN LANGUAGE!! Linguists call made-up languages 'conlangs', short for constructed languages. Arguably the most famous con-langer is J. R. R. Tolkein, author of the Lord of the Rings series. L. L. Zamenhof created Esperanto, the worlds most widely-learnt con-lang, which he hoped would become the language of international communication. It even has native speakers! Our goal is to start creating a unique, fun, but also realistic language. 'Realistic' really means that the language needs to follow some basic linguistic principles and have the necessary structure of real human languages; you should be able to teach it to your children and have them become native speakers. To achieve this, we'll need to learn some main concepts in linguistics. We'll go over important ideas from phonology, morphology and syntax, as well as study multiple examples of real spoken languages to guide us in the creation of our own languages.

Interested in what college mathematics is about? Want to get a window into the field through a fun and accessible topic that will combine many areas of math? In this class, we will study the mathematical object known as the torus (plural: tori), or in plain, the donut! We'll study it from functional, algebraic and topological perspective (as well as others- and don't worry, you'll leave knowing what these words actually mean). Here are some questions we'll answer: How do we get an equation for the torus? What other shapes is the torus like? Can I bend a torus into a sphere? What can I do on the surface of the torus; can I define functions on this surface, and what would they be like? Donuts will be provided for edible examination.

Are you fascinated by the world's multiple and diverse scripts? In this compact but structured crash course, we will take a look at the world's various writing systems. We quickly cover scripts one by one, and each time we learn how it works, examine it, and practice writing it (you get to take home your works!), and discuss briefly how it came about and how it relates or derives from others. Main topics include European alphabets (Latin, extended/adapted Latin alphabets, Cyrillic, Greek, Caucasian alphabets), Arabic and Hebrew abjads, Indian and South Asian abugidas including Devanagari, Tamil, and Thai, Ethiopian, East Asian scripts (Chinese, Japanese, and the Korean alphabet), ancient/extinct scripts including Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and Mayan glyphs. Will briefly visit undecipherable scripts and the fascinating idea of the invention of writing. If time permits, you'll apply your knowledge and skills in the creation of your own script!

Are you fascinated by the world's multiple and diverse scripts? In this compact but structured crash course, we will take a look at the world's various writing systems. We quickly cover scripts one by one, and each time we learn how it works, examine it, and practice writing it (you get to take home your works!), and discuss briefly how it came about and how it relates or derives from others. Main topics include European alphabets (Latin, extended/adapted Latin alphabets, Cyrillic, Greek, Caucasian alphabets), Arabic and Hebrew abjads, Indian and South Asian abugidas including Devanagari, Tamil, and Thai, Ethiopian, East Asian scripts (Chinese, Japanese, and the Korean alphabet), ancient/extinct scripts including Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and Mayan glyphs. Will briefly visit undecipherable scripts and the fascinating idea of the invention of writing. If time permits, you'll apply your knowledge and skills in the creation of your own script!

In this class, you'll be introduced to all of the world's major languages, including the essential and fascinating elements of their grammars, lexicons and scripts! Together we'll explore the major language 'families' and the similarities and differences between languages. With a puzzle-solving approach, you'll learn to crack fun linguistic problems and codes, and will leave with an awareness and understanding of both the diversity of human language, as well as the notion of what "language" really is.