The fossilised bones of our ancestors remain silent. So, how can we possibly imagine what our earliest languages sounded like ...

A computational analysis has highlighted the poorly understood relationships and elusive histories of modern sign languages worldwide, revealing two major sign language families shaped by geopolitical ...

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, ...

Language technology has grown fast, but it still feels frustrating at times. Maybe your virtual assistant misunderstands commands, or translation tools miss the tone of a sentence. These gaps can ...

The human environment is a very social one. Family, friends, colleagues, strangers – they all provide a continuous stream of information that we need to track and make sense of. Who is dating whom?

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 ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. It’s relatively easy to trace a written linguistic history ...

The human body is the greatest form of expression. From the clothes one wears to the things one says and does, expression is a form of self art. Sign language is a form of expression — one that ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...