At the turn of the 20th century, a famous horse named Clever Hans toured Germany. The horse stunned crowds as his trainer demonstrated the animal's alleged ability to understand German, tell time and ...

Charles Hockett’s ‘design features’ no longer reflect major findings in linguistics, cognitive science, and biology.

Despite the vast diversity of human languages, specific grammatical patterns appear again and again. A new study reveals that ...

Whales use complex communication systems we still don’t understand, a trope exploited in sci-fi shows like Apple TV’s Extrapolations. That show featured a humpback whale (voiced by Meryl Streep) ...

Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species. However, research published in Science has uncovered ...

All human languages follow the same pattern: The most common word is used twice as often as the second most common word, three times as often as the third most common word, four times as often as the ...

Scientists have long considered the complexity of language to be an obvious separation between humans and all other life forms on Earth. New research, however, suggests our linguistic abilities might ...

Among the myriad abilities that humans possess, which ones are uniquely human? Language has been a top candidate at least since Aristotle, who wrote that humanity was “the animal that has language.” ...

A new study reveals that whale song and human languages share features that make them easier to learn. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are known for their complex songs. New research suggests ...