Learn more about the origins of language, and how our ancient ancestors may have developed it in a sudden jump rather than ...

Humans are the only species known to use fully symbolic language: a system capable of expressing abstract ideas, imaginary worlds and endless combinations of meaning. But how did we get there? The ...

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 ...

A linguistics analysis shows that language arrived in North America in multiple waves from Siberia. The Americas have half of the world’s linguistic diversity, despite a much shorter human history.

The languages in the Indo-European family are spoken by almost half of the world’s population. This group includes a huge number of languages, ranging from English and Spanish to Russian, Kurdish and ...

An international team of linguists and geneticists led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has achieved a significant breakthrough in our ...

Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Ron Pinhasi and his team in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna contribute a new piece to this puzzle in ...

The globe hums with thousands of languages. But when did humans first lay out a structured system to communicate, one that was distinct to a particular area? Scientists are aware of more than 7,100 ...

Are language and mythology linked? Yes, according to French politician Dominique de Villepin (b. 1953): "If we speak our adversary's language, we feed their propaganda and mythology." But can we speak ...