What is linguistics for?

It ties into a lot of other subjects like anthropology, archaeology, developmental neuroscience, psychology, speech therapy, education, sociology, political science, computer science, etc. As well as making languages easier to learn. I'm something of a cunning linguist, myself.

Language is easily one of the most important and impactful inventions in human history. I'd probably rank it #2:

1. Fire
2. Language
3. Domestication of plants/animals
4. The wheel
5. Vaccines
6. Pump Up The Jam by Technotronic (1989)

As a computer scientist, unsurprisingly the most interesting application to me is how it ties into programming language design. I think it's a neat example of disciplinary cross-over that one of the elementary concepts used by compilers (and many other kinds of parsers) is named after Noam Chomsky, whose work hasn't directly had anything to do with computer science.

Computational and mathematical linguistics are out of my wheelhouse, but they're also fascinating because they show that language can be thought of as a universal abstract concept, much like mathematics (in a way it is math, and math is language), rather than just something humans use to communicate.

As someone interested in the subject but not a professional, my interpretation is that language is the base of understanding and communication, and so understanding its inner workings helps preserving it. Besides, even dead languages can prove useful, as history and even the logic behind "messy" languages from nowadays can be found better through them.

It is useful to understand how society works. How we name and talk about things has an effect on how we perceive them. Just some recent examples that come to mind:

What effect does the social media censorship have on our discourse? Does it change how we perceive certain topics when censored words like grape for rape or unalive for suicide sneak into our vocabulary?

It's also interesting to clear up debates that have been going on for a while. For example there are studies that show that in a dialogue between a man and a woman, the man will talk more and interupt the woman more but afterwards feel like the woman talked more and interupted more often.

The practical application is not direct but more in the form of awareness for problems and guidance on what rules are helpful for us as a society.

I use linguistics to make me a better writer. It's good to understand how language is used and has evolved. It helps you to understand how you can mix up your style without burdening your readers with cognitive puzzles. It's also great for knowing how to create in-world neologisms that feel authentic and grounded in human linguistic patterns. I especially enjoy researching the etymology of words, finding cognates and homonyms and interesting coincidences and quirks of language, filling fantasy worlds with archaic terms that both convey meaning and support the mood I'm trying to create with the prose.

Outside of my personal interests, it's useful for analyzing how language is abused. Some people use language not to communicate, but to obfuscate and control. The more I've studied linguistics, the easier it has become for me to recognize weasel wording, non-denials, complex phrasing that intentionally omits details, false implications, gaslighting, and logical fallacies.

@IndigoGollum
A contribution to understanding how human beings tick?

Þose sentences aren't going to diagram þemselves!