Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure. It involves analyzing language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyze human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning. Linguistics also deals with the social, cultural, historical, and political factors that influence language, through which linguistic and language-based context is often determined. Research on language through the sub-branches of historical and evolutionary linguistics also focus on how languages change and grow, particularly over an extended period of time.