The word linguistics is composed of two morphemes linguist and –ics. The base morpheme linguist derives from the Latin word lingua (“language” or “tongue”) whilst the suffix -ics tends to generate nouns that refer to fields of knowledge and practice. Does that explain anything about linguistics? No, anyone can google that. Does it sound ‘linguisticky’? Probably, especially if you trace back lingua to ,the Old Latin ,dingua, ,which has even been analysed down to its Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root. But that’s not linguistics. That’s etymology (the study of the origins of words), and it’s only a minuscule aspect of the whole…