12 February 2024
Infants aged just 4 months old who live in a home where two languages are spoken have distinct patterns of brain activation compared with infants living in monolingual environments
26 June 2023
Female dolphins modify their vocalisations in the presence of their offspring, mirroring the ‘baby talk’ used by humans
13 June 2023
People who were played fake translations in their sleep could recall which category of words they belonged to when they woke up
14 April 2023
Some of the most important inventions – wheels, nets and the written word – have creators lost to time, even though their impact shaped the world we live in
4 January 2023
Stone Age people in Europe appear to have recorded the reproductive habits of animals with markings on cave paintings, hinting at the early origins of writing
6 July 2022
Facebook's owner Meta has created an AI model that can translate dozens more languages than the biggest current tools, and the company also claims the results are better than those of competitors
17 June 2022
By detecting tiny movements of particles of light, a quantum microphone has recorded human speech that is easier to understand than if it is captured by an equivalent classical version
11 January 2022
The characters used to write the Vai script, which was invented in Liberia in 1833, have become visually simpler over time, reflecting the evolutionary pressures acting on writing
16 December 2021
As people around the world travel more and receive more formal education, languages are predicted to vanish at an alarming rate
11 November 2021
Language and tool use seem to be governed by the same brain region, suggests a study involving an fMRI scanner
