Breaking the link between language and human biology didn’t just demystify language; it restored the possibility of mind to the animal world and repositioned linguistic capacities as ...

Zipf’s law of abbreviation explains how commonly spoken words tend to be shorter. The idea is so intuitive, birds appear to ...

Why do humans have language and other animals apparently don’t? It’s one of the most enduring questions in the study of mind and communication. Across all cultures, humans use richly ...

In our attempts to identify how human culture differs from that of other animals we have been focusing on the wrong things, a new paper argues. What is distinctive is how flexible our culture is ...

Key points One of the main differences between humans and animals is that people have language. Typical features of human language, such as syntax, can also be found in animals. Monkeys and apes ...

Chimp chatter is a lot more like human language than previously thought By combining different sounds, the apes unlock sophisticated communication abilities ...

Key points Animal cognition has emphasized similarity. The differences between human predator brains and equine prey brains are strong. Understanding and appreciating difference is more important ...

In other words, to translate animal communication into human language. Yet most scientists agree that non-human animals do not have an actual language of their own—at least not in the way that ...