The words "mama", "cookie", and "paper" might seem innocuous and common enough, but they share a linguistic quality that's statistically rare within the world's collective lexicon: They all contain a ...

The study of language evolution and learning addresses the complex interplay between cultural dynamics and biological predispositions in shaping human communication. Researchers employ experimental ...

From "yeet" to "social distancing," new words and phrases constantly emerge and evolve in American English. But how do these neologisms—newly coined terms—gain acceptance and become part of mainstream ...

Example of recurrent change. Still images from video dictionary entries that illustrate the phonological pattern of thumb extension. Both signs are produced with four fingers extended, but the sign ...

A growing body of genetic evidence suggests that Neanderthals and Denisovans carried many of the same regulatory gene networks linked to language and vocal anatomy in modern humans, challenging the ...

A photo by Seán Roberts on a recent hike near his house in Wales, which prompted him to recall the conclusion of a research paper he co-authored on the impact of environment on language. "Ultimately, ...

Wild chimpanzees alter the meaning of single calls when embedding them into diverse call combinations, mirroring linguistic operations in human language. Human language, however, allows an infinite ...

For thousands of years, spoken language has set humans apart from all other species. The ability to convey complex ideas, ...

For more than 150 years ago, the assumption that language is a singular event has hampered progress in explaining its evolution. Another obstacle was the failure to recognize that certain social ...