Spring 2027

Historical Linguistics

Historical Linguistics covers understanding language change, its relation to formal properties, linguistic typology, and basic concepts and methods of diachronic analysis.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Joe Salmons

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Joseph Salmons

The course features many readings that are not always easy to understand, requiring consistent effort to keep up with the material.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify patterns of change in human language

  • Organize and analyze data on language change

  • Apply theories of change to analyze data from familiar and unfamiliar languages

  • Describe patterns of language change, common accounts for those patterns and how they are grounded in understanding language generally

  • Apply the Comparative Method to evaluate linguistic reconstruction

  • Understand and critically evaluate research on language change

  • Critically evaluate theoretical and empirical arguments for competing linguistic analyses of changes

  • Integrate structural and social accounts of language change into a holistic analysis

  • Formulate and develop support for new hypotheses for the analysis of language change

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

(LINGUIS 101 or 301),ENGL 417,ASIAN 631,GERMAN 650,PORTUG/​FRENCH/​ITALIAN/​SPANISH 429, or SCAND ST 415

LINGUIS 303

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JOSEPH SALMONS is recorded teaching in Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 300

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Joseph Salmons

Joe Salmons delivers amazing lectures that clarify complex material, and his caring approach creates a supportive learning environment.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.95 GPA, 95.2% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.81 GPA, 84.6% A/AB (n=13 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.50 GPA, 76.9% A/AB (n=13 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Joseph Salmons

The course features many readings that are not always easy to understand, requiring consistent effort to keep up with the material.

Past student reviews · Joseph Salmons

Students found him lenient with deadlines provided they completed the homework, and his persona was described as having strong 'Dad energy'.

Topics

  • Language classification, reconstruction, social identity, geography, power, language contact, registers, and writing systems
  • Linguistic typology and methods of diachronic analysis

Skills

  • Organize and analyze data on language change
  • Apply the Comparative Method to evaluate linguistic reconstruction
  • Critically evaluate theoretical and empirical arguments for competing linguistic analyses of changes

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
LINGUIS 303 · Spring 2027

Historical Linguistics

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:550:022186",
    "course_id": "LINGUIS 303",
    "course_uid": "course_8b3ab8bcf8fb1f5502a4cb1c",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "022186",
    "source_subject_id": "550",
    "title": "Historical Linguistics",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "1102ef8203fae5e5cc1303c18e60670d0854bbb29a587cf2877f83b76eec3338",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}