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<p>There aren’t a lot of jobs out there for pure “linguists” (other than in academia) . . . but there are ample opportunities in various branches of the government (including foreign services and intelligence services) for people with those kinds of language skills. So you might want to point out to your more critical family members that even though what you’re studying may seem pointless to them, you could end up having your choice of very well paid jobs. “Linguistics,” standing alone, might not make sense to them, but “linguistics + job” might impress them enough that they’ll back down a bit.</p>