An international team proposes replacing Hockett’s feature checklist with a model of language as a dynamic, multimodal, and socially evolving system.

Sanskrit is a language reveled for its complexity in many regards. It is grammatically very complex, has a rich phonemic library, and is considered to be one of the oldest documented languages in the ...

Language is more than just spoken and written words. It’s the lens through which we see the world. Language is a beautifully intricate system that allows us to express our thoughts, emotions and ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Among the myriad abilities that humans possess, which ones are uniquely human? Language has been a top candidate at least since ...

As language users, we have a lot of flexibility in the way we use words. Only the rules of grammar might constrain the order of words used and consequently change the meaning of a sentence. The ...

A language that was declared to be extinct seven decades ago may be making a return. Ckunsa was the primary language of one of Chile's Indigenous peoples. As John Bartlett reports, today's speakers ...

A recent large-scale study showed that speaking more than one language can protect the brain for age-related changes. Although the study did not directly examine brain mechanisms, scientists have long ...