The textbook is written based on a course of lectures on language as a means of communication. The reader will become acquainted with the most important principles of the structure of language, its origin, development and functioning in modern society, as well as the contradictions and mysteries that constitute the subject of today's linguistics, which will help the formation of methodological principles and the development of linguistic observation of philology students. Each topic is accompanied by original problems and exercises for independent work; The book also includes biographical information about philologists whose names are mentioned in the text. For students of philological faculties of universities and pedagogical institutes.