Really well designed. Great topics and a nice balance of videos and readings. I did not enjoy the ethnologue part as much, but that it is me. I found the discussion prompts excellent and very beneficial for thinking more deeply on the subject. I also liked they way they are set up. I wonder, if anyone had replied to one of my posts, would I have seen it? I replied to several people with thoughtful answer and don't know if they saw my answers. Finally, I think it would be nice to receive a final grade for the course, even if it doesn't truly count for anything, it's a satisfying feeling. Thank you for all your efforts. I truly appreciated the course. Great job!

Course material was informative and presented in a simple and straightforward manner. A few links to websites were broken. My only suggestion would be that the course provide pdf downloads as alternative to webpage links. Although i have passed the course it has shown me the gaps in my basic knowledge and opened up new topics i find interesting.

The Final exam was difficult as involved referring back to video - ( i failed first attempt but went back and reviewed the videos and passed 2nd attempt.) Perhaps a small note prior to starting final exam could indicate a review of certain videos is advised.

My first Coursera course but it wont be my last.

It is a well-built course with a competent and engaging instructor. I appreciated particularly the varation in content that was offered: normal videos, discussions, interviews with experts of the field and the videos of the informants. The latter provided interesting insights in foreign languages that one usually doesn't get to hear and I was amazed by the big varations between them. Both the required and optional readings are useful for having additional resources and the 2-month free access to Ethnlogue provided by Leiden University is also very nice for everyone that wants to explore further the fascinating world of languages.

An informative introduction to linguistics! I enjoyed the sample languages provided, and especially the dialogues from renowned experts in the field such as Labov and Chomsky. I do wish, however, there had been more discussion about ongoing research, career/education pathways, and applied linguistics itself. (I am an ESL teacher considering a more stable future for myself.) Overall, my sincerest thanks to Marc, Inge, Marten, and all the language informants for providing this quality content to folks like me in dire need of some mental stimulation during this lockdown. I wish you all the very best. -Nick

This was my first Coursera course and I found it immensely informative and interesting. Professor van Oostendorp seems to have a genuine enthusiasm for linguistics, which made working through the modules rather enjoyable. I also greatly appreciated the extras (i.e. discussions with his students, interviews, etc.) as they really helped to solidify my understanding of the material. My only quibble is I wish the correct answers were provided after completion of each quiz, as this would have helped with my review. But overall, I loved this course and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in linguistics!

This course was everything I had hoped for and so much more. It's extremely interesting and challenged me to view aspects of language from many different angles. It also opened my eyes to other possible fields within language studies, which I had not considered or didn't even know of until now. The professor, students and guest speakers were all very knowledgeable, professional and clear in their explanations. The course itself was well structured and different media was used to help explain and explore the coursework. I cannot recommend this course enough to anyone who is interested in linguistics.

A wonderful course on principles in Linguistics presented by this lovely professor Dr. Marc van Oostendorp and enriched with the discussions with Marten and Inge. As a Linguistics and Literature student, I felt that they found what was a very nice way to spread this knowledge and, in my case, a more concise discipline in which I could refresh my memory for somethings but also get to know new informations and different points of view and, at last, as an observer from Brazil, to compare a little how these things are discussed here from there. Thank you very much for the hard work and the entousiasm!

I would like to say an enormous "Thank You" to everyone who contributed to this Course to be accessible: to professor Marc van Oostendorp, to Marten and Inge, to informants, to translators, redactors, designers and all whom I didn't mention but who were those thanks to whom we now know all we know and share this with others! The Course specifically opened to me that our living in four walls and thinking about ourselfs mostly hides us from all the beatiful unknown things happening in the world: from other cultures, other ways of looking at things! Indeed, folks, live in peace, let it be so!

No tengo formación en el área, no hablo inglés y sin embargo me divertí muchísimo. El profesor van Oostendorp y sus estudiantes Inge y Martin resultaron muy buenos conductores de un proceso que me permitió: rectificar mis nociones básicas, conocer la variedad de soluciones/caminos que es capaz de idear el ser humano y asomarme al trabajo de especialistas.

Los recursos disponibilizados, lejos de ser banales, tampoco imponen niveles inalcanzables. Agradezco especialmente la transcripción (aunque sea en inglés), de otra manera, no hubiera podido completar el curso.

I've always been passionate about languages, and I am very grateful that this MOOC provided me with the opportunity to gain a new insight into Linguistics.

I will gladly take a course like that again, because my vision and interest in linguistics has certainly expanded quite a lot due to this course. Professor Marc van Oostendorp's enthusiasm is compelling and his explanations and examples are easy to understand.

The videos were clear and engaging, and the discussion videos with students, interviews with experts, and language informants were a great touch.

It is very nice to see an introductory course in linguistics, especially for it being free and available online. I would not have had an opportunity like that anywhere here locally, which makes this course special to me. The instructor and his pupils were paramount to the learning experience, and with the addition of interviews and recommended readings, this course excels in tactically defining and showing what linguists do and what they study. I want to thank Leiden University and Marc van Oostendorp for providing such a professionally delivered MOOC.

As a translation and interpretation student who always have thoughts about changing department not because I do not like mine but I am interested into every department related to language, this course has been a priceless opportunity and experience to me. I really appreciate the efforts of the lecturer and his assistants.

Only negative aspect of this course was its being so good that I cannot feel comfortable and satisfied with any other lesson I enrolled since completing it :) I strongly recommend it to whom are interested into language studies.

Excellent introduction to the subject of linguistics. Thoroughly enjoyed my time with this course, and it has piqued my interest in taking this further.

I loved the way Prof Dr van Oostendorp presents this course, with genuine interest, understanding, humour and nuance. I really liked the teaching style and would love to have more contact with him. And I also liked the way Marten and Inge were part of the course, and how they interacted with the professor and with me.

The course is structured well and is easy to finish even while one has a day job.

Miracles of Human Language is a wonderful introduction to the field of linguistics. Prof.dr. M. van Oostendorp is an adept and engaging lecturer and his knowledge of his field is vast. His discussions with Marten and Inge were engaging and his interactions with the language informants was, well... informing! I only wish I could contribute a language to his MOOC as well as participate in his research and work at Universiteit Leiden. Thank you, Dr. van Oostendorp, Marten, Inge, Roberta, Khalid, Han, Varun, Enoch, and Beste. It's been quite a ride!

The inspirational and charismatic teacher! His speech is clear and not very fast, so even non-native English speakers will be able to understand the lectures. The course helped me take a more in-depth look at human language and improve my critical thinking skills! The quizzes (at the end of each module) might seem a little complicated at first sight… but if you study carefully, take notes during the lectures, and do all the required reading, you will easily pass the quiz. I strongly recommend this course! You will definitely gain new knowledge.

Teaching is not an easy job, even more so online, but this course was so well done with diverse course materials, various speakers and especially such an enthusiastic teacher. Probably one of the best course I had in my entire education. I wish there was a module specifically about language history, because that's what I'm interested in the most, but really it's a great introduction to a field that was very foreign to me. Too bad there isn't more course about linguistics on here, but at least we're given reading recommendations to follow up.

I absolutely loved this course!! I had no idea what Linguistics really was, and this course explained it perfectly. The Professor is extraordinary. It is very well structured, clearly explained, the part of the informants is very illustrative but sometimes difficult to interpret, which makes it all the more challenging. The exams are very tough so you have to study a lot, which is great,, because a free course doesn't mean that it will be easy. I wish there were more courses on this subject by the same institution, it was fantastic.

A very good introduction to Linguistics and the different aspects of the field. This is a broad field, and, like any Intro class, a lot of information is presented in a short amount of time. The quizes can be pretty specific, and the questions about the Language Informants are difficult. I would advise getting hold of the recommended Text book just to have background information on some of the topics that are just briefly explained in the video lectures. I really enjoyed this class, and plan to continue my studies in Linguistics.

An excellent course. Easy to follow, easy to understand, and it encourages you to comment and have dialogues in the forum for every topic. The quizzes are a little bit hard, but that's expected from a well thought out and put up course made by university professors. It has been really fun to follow for six weeks, which I think is a well designed period to learn the basics of Linguistics. Also, it has a lot of videos of informants with different languages so it's very diverse. Thank you so much. I'll revisit these contents later.

The professor taught the material in a very clear and understandable way. Having live examples using various language informants was also very informative (the only qualm I would have is that the Mandarin Chinese videos should be transliterated in a more readable format, most of it was incomprehensible due to my unfamiliarity with any aspect of the language). The reading material and books were also really interesting. Overall, I learnt a great deal in this course and I think I have a better idea of the field of linguistics.

I wholeheartedly like to thank Dr. Marc van Oostendorp and his team for presenting this MOOC course is the best possible manner. I really gained good knowledge and developed lots and lots of interest toward language and linguistics. This course has almost covered major aspects of human language and linguistics. In my opinion this course gives a very good platform for those who would like do research in Language and Linguistics. Interviews with some of the eminent persons in the field Language and Linguistics was excellent.

This is course will surely play a pivotal role in my understanding of the human language when I will study more in depth at the university completing a MA in Lingustics. Thanks to the professors who contributed to this courses, all the people who crowdfunded a module 6, Martin and Inge and other professors who were a part of this course. Thanks for the exclusive interview of Dr Chomsky too. Lastly, I would like to thank Coursera for giving me this opprtunity to learn about this subject. Once again, Thanks to everybody.

This course has been an emotional and mental journey for me. I started with high hopes of finishing it on time and without delays but my schedule and some lessons were a little too hard for me, I need to go over them not just twice but I believe I go over a lesson for more than five times. But I am grateful because I learned a lot. There were topics that were new to m and I am thankful that this course opened to me about these topics. Thank you for this course. I had a lot of takeaways after completing it.

I found the course very informative, there was quite a lot of information in there for only six weeks of study but it didn't feel overwhelming either. Professor Marc van Oostendorp was very engaging in his presentation of the material, and I liked the fact that his students were there to ask questions as well. I also liked how the language informants were used - I was able to practice what I had learned in the other videos by analysing their speech patterns. Overall, I was quite impressed by this course.

This is my first Coursera course and I love it. The course is student-friendly with classes elaborately designed and informative with lots of source readings. The forum is one of the best parts of the course. I learn how to think questions like a linguist. And from informants of different background, I know there are so many interesting languages existing in our world. As the course name shows that it is an introduction to Linguistics, my interests towards the linguistics is well developed. Thank you.