A linguist is a person who studies language. They might:
* Analyze the structure of language: How words are put together, how sentences are formed, and how language changes over time.
* Study the history of languages: Tracing how languages evolve and are related to each other.
* Research language acquisition: How children learn language, how adults learn new languages, and how language is used in different contexts.
* Develop language resources: Creating dictionaries, grammars, and language learning materials.
* Work on language technology: Developing systems for machine translation, speech recognition, and natural language processing.
Linguists can work in various fields, including:
* Academia: Teaching, research, and writing about language.
* Government: Analyzing language data, working on translation projects, and supporting language policy.
* Technology companies: Developing language software, building translation systems, and working on artificial intelligence projects.
In short, linguists are experts in language and its many aspects.