Humans' unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago, according to a survey of genomic evidence. As such, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago. It is a deep ...

Human languages are known to have grown and changed considerably over the course of history, often reflecting technological, cultural, and societal shifts. Studying the evolution of languages can thus ...

Two groundbreaking studies reveal that despite the vast diversity of human languages, there are deep, recurring patterns in ...

Researchers use molecular barcoding to discover that Alston’s singing mice evolved complex vocalizations through targeted tripling of neural projections.

Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species. However, research published in Science has uncovered ...

My son is a wizard. He walks into the kitchen, looks at me and utters the magic words: “Can I have a cheese and tomato sandwich, please?” A few minutes later, just such a snack appears in front of him ...

All known human languages display a surprising pattern: the most frequent word in a language is twice as frequent as the second most frequent, three times as frequent as the third, and so on. This is ...

Rachael has a degree in Zoology from the University of Southampton, and specializes in animal behavior, evolution, palaeontology, and the environment. Rachael has a degree in Zoology from the ...