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

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 ...

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 ...

Language is one of the few faculties that still seems to be uniquely human. Other animals, like chimpanzees and songbirds, have developed elaborate communication systems, but none appears to convey ...

This research was supported by funding from: The National Center for Competence in Research "Evolving Language" (SNSF agreement number 51NF40_180888) Swiss National Science Foundation (project grant ...

The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater ...

Each year, new words find their way into the general American English lexicon. Even if we try to avoid them, these new slang terms are spreading and being used all around us.Related video above: RETRO ...

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 ...

In a re-evaluation of Hockett's foundational features that have long dominated linguistic theory—concepts like "arbitrariness," "duality of patterning," and "displacement"—an international team of ...

The study of language and communication evolution investigates the processes by which linguistic systems emerge, stabilise and change over time. At its core lie game‐theoretic models, such as ...