The self-help books are full of advice on how to get meaning in life, but it helps to understand what meaning actually is. Science may be able to provide some answers.
Considering language from a biological perspective led researchers to the idea that new food processing technologies affected neolithic human beings’ jaws – and allowed new language sounds to emerge.
In the space of a few short years, deaf Nicaraguan school children created their own language. This example may give us a clue about how spoken language developed over thousands of years.
A new theory of language suggests that people understand words by unconsciously simulating what they describe. Repeated exposure – and the simulation that comes with it – makes it easier to act.
A small community of Afrikaners has been living in Argentina since the early 1900s. Linguistic research has found they’re like a time capsule, reflecting pronunciation and syntax from an earlier era.
Approximately 7,000 languages are spoken in the world today, but only about half are expected to survive this century. One factor contributing to this loss is climate change.