The department has carried out general theoretical studies in the areas of descriptive linguistics, field linguistics, historical comparative linguistics, and other related fields along with individual studies on specific languages based on those theoretical foundations.

Lectures and seminars are given selectively on the above topics and include descriptive linguistics, field linguistics, comparative linguistics, phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, pragmatics and studies on such languages as Sino-Tibetan, Semitic, native American languages including Eskimo, African, Indo-European, Korean and Japanese. Foreign language courses given by this department are focused mainly on Asian languages such as Korean, Burmese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Arabic, Persian, Indonesian, Tamil, and others. Fields outside the staff’s major concerns are covered by part-time lecturers from other universities.

Undergraduate and graduate students attend their respective courses, though some lectures and seminars are open to both. Each graduate student is required to submit at least one paper a year.

The staff, students and graduates organize the Kyoto University Linguistic Circle, which holds three meetings a year, where lectures and papers on various topics are presented. The journal Kyoto University Linguistic Research is annually published by the department.

• http://ling.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/modules/pico/index.php?content_id=34