A General Introduction to Linguistics takes the lay reader through the scientific study of language, linguistics. Moving away from a Euro-centric premise, the author begins with Panini’s description of Sanskrit grammar in his eight books, the Ashtadhayi and moves on to linguists who have contributed to the discipline like de Saussure, Bloomfield and Chomsky, whose theories it conveys simply and lucidly. It also deals with current linguistic theories and touches upon issues in socio-linguistics, linguistic human rights and language death.