Humans are the only species known to use fully symbolic language: a system capable of expressing abstract ideas, imaginary ...

How did language begin? Words don't leave artifacts behind — writing began long after language did — so theories of language origins have generally been based on hunches. For centuries there had been ...

If there is one most distinguishing feature that makes us human, it would be our ability to enunciate words, aka language. Through language, we convey our feelings and thoughts as well as influence ...

Every time we speak, we're improvising. "Humans possess a remarkable ability to talk about almost anything, sometimes putting words together into never-before-spoken or -written sentences," said ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Noam Chomsky’s political views attract so ...