Linguistics is the scientific study of language, specifically language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the description of language have been attributed to the 4th century BCE Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who was an early student of linguistics and wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī. Areas of study related to linguistics include semiotics (the study of signs and symbols both within language and without), literary criticism, translation, and speech-language pathology.