Minors & Certificates

Linguistics Minor

An undergraduate minor in linguistics would be particularly useful for students majoring in English, foreign languages, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, sociology, communications, speech science, neuroscience, computer science, and information science, as well as for students with an interest in teaching English as a second language, going to law school, or otherwise choosing a profession in which language plays a crucial part.

The minor consists of 15 credits and comprises the following courses:

• LING 1000 Introduction to Linguistics
• Four electives, chosen from the linguistics courses at the 1000 level (e.g. Syntax, Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Historical Linguistics, Aspects of Sociolinguistics, Introduction to Applied Linguistics, and more)

Please note that, as of academic year 2026, students are allowed to double-count courses between majors, minors and certificates. For example, you could take LING 1520 Introduction to Arabic Linguistics to count for your Arabic Major and your Ling Minor. Likewise, LING 1330 Intro to Computational Linguistics can double-count towards your Ling Minor and CompLing Certificate. 

Certificate in Computational Linguistics

The Undergrad Certificate in Computational Linguistics is a latest addition to our degree offerings. An interdisciplinary program administered by the Department of Linguistics in collaboration with the Department Computer Science, it comes in two tracks:

• The Computational Linguistics Certificate - Linguistics Track
• The Computational Linguistics Certificate - Computer Science Track 

Please see this certificate page for details.  

Language Minors, Majors and Certificates 

If you are looking to complement your linguistics degree with a foreign-language credential, Pitt offers many great opportunities: you can find the range of options on this page.  The Department of Linguistics also adminsters many of the language programs in-house.

The Less-Commonly-Taught-Languages Center of the Department of Linguistics is now offering minors in ten languages that you won't find at many other colleges or universities! The minor is comprised of 17 credits: 4 language courses and one elective. As of the fall of 2019, minors can now be pursued in:

In addition, our department offers the ASL certificate, which require some core linguistics courses: American Sign Language Certificate

The Arabic language program now offers a major as well as a minor: Arabic Major or Minor

And don't overlook the other languages offered by LCTL:  Amharic, Haitian Creole, Danish and Hungarian.