These 5,000-year-old seals might have paved the way for the invention of writing (and the birth of history)
Researchers discover that ancient cylinder seals may hold the key to decoding undeciphered proto-cuneiform signs.
Tag: language
Can you think without words? Neuroscientist explains why language isn’t required for deep thinking
It turns out that language isn't what sets humans apart when it comes to complex thought.
The Untold Story of An Ancient African Alphabet Born from a Dream
In the 19th century, a man living in present-day Liberia dreamed of the first script for his native Vai language. ...
What is the hardest language to learn as a native English speaker?
English speakers may find Mandarin, Arabic, and Japanese up to four times harder to master than Spanish or French.
Just four words capture the entire spectrum of human emotions in language
The words 'GOOD,' 'WANT,' 'BAD,' and 'LOVE' are like emotional superhighways in language.
Digital Resistance: Ukraine’s social media language shows less Russian and More Ukrainian since invasion started
The study offers a strong example of a national identity manifested online.
A bilingual brain can help you filter out information efficiently
Filtering out languages seems to help you filter out useless information too.
This Australian duck says ‘You bloody fool’ and imitates other wacky sounds — and we couldn’t be more fascinated
This rare display of acquired vocalization could help scientists unravel the origin of speech and language in humans.
The average dog knows 89 words and phrases. But some are super smart
Scientists used the same language assessment tools designed for human children.
Why some people can’t count past “1”: Mathematical thinking is shaped by language and culture
Counting is hard when your language doesn't have words for numbers.
Our brains may be naturally wired for multilingualism, being ‘blind’ to changes between languages
As long as we understand what they mean, they're all the same language to our brains.
White matter density in our brains at birth may influence how easily we learn to understand and use language
Nature, as well as nurture, play a part in our ability to learn language.
AI translates ancient cuneiform tablets
It should help us preserve these priceless texts for the future.
Politically-incorrect language can seem sincere, but only if you’re saying what the audience wants to hear
Nobody is free of biases, not even ourselves.
Very young children use both sides of the brain to process language, while adults only use half
Two hemispheres are better than one!
‘Brain fossil’ suggests origin of human language may be 25-million-years old
The seeds for the development of speech and language may have been sown many millions years earlier than scientists previously ...
Language forms spontaneously, and fast
People love to communicate -- there are over 7,000 languages in use today.
Men are more likely than women to use more abstract language
The differences may be due to the power dynamics between the two genders.
Old World primates can only use two ‘words’ at a time, new research suggests
"It's not the human system," say the authors.
African green monkeys howling at drones teach us about the evolution of language
Before there was the word, there was the meaning of sound.
New research sheds light into how our brains handle metaphors
Whether you break an egg or break into dance, our brain handles the word "break" the same.
A new study estimates English only takes about 1.5 megabytes of your brainspace
That's about the same size as.... 3 high-resolution memes or one-tenth of a second of video in 1080p.
Ancestral shift in diet may have changed human speech as well
Softer food gave humans an overbite that made it easier to produce "v" and "f" sounds.
Activating a new language is easy — the effort goes in suppressing the old one
Oui oui, tres bien!
From insects to whales, all sorts of animals take turns to communicate
When one utters, the other listens -- and such is the case in most animals too.
Australian magpies can understand what other birds are ‘saying’ with surprising clarity
Magpies? Check. Throwing orange balls at magpies? Check. Grated cheese? Check. I love this study.
Nouns slow down speech, which is why we utter a lot of ‘uhs’ and ‘uhms’ before them
We're far more likely to use slow-down sounds before nouns than verbs.
Monkey ‘vocabulary’ could clue us in on evolution of human speech
An adorable monkey's 'ekks' and 'tsiks' might teach how speech evolved.
New study links ancient cave drawings and the origin of language
Human speech may have been born out of cave art.
Languages with large vocabularies have simple grammar, study suggests
Languages with large vocabularies, such as Mandarin or English, are simpler grammatically, as opposed to complex languages which possess reduced ...
Need to improve your foreign language skills? A bit of alcohol will do the trick, researchers find
Booze to the rescue! Just don't overindulge.
Talking in a foreign language makes our decision more about utility, less about emotion
The language we use really does influence what our brains are doing.
You can still remember a foreign language even if you think it’s forever forgotten
Exposure to a foreign language even at a meager age of six months can stick with you well into adulthood.
Each language you speak in alters your perception of time, study finds
The pen is mightier than the clock too, it seems.
Researchers translate bat language. Turns out, they argue a lot
Turns out they argue. A lot.
That urge to complete other people’s sentences? Turns out the brain has its own Auto Correct
In the hippocampus -- which is weird, because we didn't think it had anything to do with talking.
No matter what your native language is – we all speak the same, study finds
Humans have a surprising tendency to use the same sounds for the same objects -- across language barriers.
Both Democrats and Republicans use simpler grammar than 50 years ago. Trump most of all, to good effect
Analysists from Grammarly looked at all the general election debate transcripts since the 1960s word for word and found Presidential ...
Forgot how to speak a foreign language? Maybe. Your brain didn’t, though
Even though they can't remember a word in mandarin, children from China adopted in France bear the same brain activity ...
Humans are not unique in understanding the basics of language
A paper published recently in Nature Communications details how a team lead by Dr. Ben Wilson and Professor Chris Petkov ...
Basque people, who to this day speak a prehistoric language, came from early Iberic farmers
Basques - an ethnic group from modern day Spain - were thought to be direct descendants of hunter-gatherers who had ...
Sperm whales clans have different dialects
A insightful incursion into the lives of sperm whales shows just how similar these gentle marine giants are to us. ...
A language that sounds like birdsong, whistled Turkish, uses both brain hemispheres
One of the most peculiar languages in the world, whistled Turkish, is challenging the long-standing idea that the left brain ...
10 of the Weirdest Internet Slang Words That Are Now in the Dictionary
No matter how puritans might hate it, the English language, as any language for that matter, is constantly shifting, expanding ...
Language is not restricted to humans: Scientists find bird species with its own language
Joining sounds together to create a meaningful language was thought to be a human characteristic, but a new study published ...
A Spectacular Pie Chart of the World’s Most Spoken Languages
“A world of languages” is a fascinating infographic created by Alberto Lucas Lopéz for the South China Morning Post. It ...
Indo-european languages appeared 6,500 years ago on Russian steps
Languages like English, Greek or Hindu, all Indo-European tongues, stem from a common ancestral language family which originated 5,500 - ...
Spanish is the happiest language in the world, new study reveals
Researchers have theoretized for some time that our languages are skewed towards happy words - with some more skewed than ...
New Bacterial language could help kill infections without antibiotics
Researchers in Germany report the discovery a previously unknown bacterial communication pathway, one that might be a potential target for ...
Learning a second language helps children see the world differently
Most kids believe that human and animal characteristics are innate - that is, looks, personality and language are intrinsic, inherited, ...
