When did the first humans start speaking? Did we always have this ability, inherited from our immediate ancestors? These questions sound impossible to answer — but not quite so. A new study, drawing ...

A new framework argues that human language did not arise from a single evolutionary leap but from the convergence of many biological abilities and cultural processes.

A new study explores the long-debated question of when humans first developed language. Genome-level research suggests early Homo sapiens may have begun using language around 135,000 years ago. While ...

Humans' unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago, according to a survey of genomic evidence. As such, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago. It is a deep ...

AI platforms like ChatGPT are widely understood to be sophisticated prediction machines. Trained on vast troves of content ranging from news articles and books to film scripts and Reddit posts, they ...

Grunts, barks, screams and pants ring through Taï National Park in Cȏte d’Ivoire. Chimpanzees there combine these different calls like linguistic Legos to relay complex meanings when communicating, ...

Mice carrying a gene variant present in nearly every human on Earth — but not in extinct relatives including Neanderthals — produce more-complex chirps than normal rodents do 1. The finding suggests ...