Tag Archive for 'Language'

Has Voynich Manuscript Been Decoded? Mysterious Book May Be Written in Proto-Romance Language

May 15, 2019 by News Staff

The Voynich manuscript, sometimes described as the ‘world’s most mysterious text,’ may be written in proto-Romance, a language that arose from a...

Paleolithic edge-to-edge bite (top) and a modern overbite/overjet bite (bottom) and how ‘f’ sounds are produced in a biomechanical model. Image credit: Timea Bodogan / Scott Moisik.

Post-Neolithic Diet-Induced Dental Changes Led to Introduction of ‘F’ and ‘V’ Sounds

Mar 18, 2019 by News Staff

A class of speech sounds that is now present in nearly half of the world’s languages — labiodentals, produced by positioning the lower lip against...

Gestures of our primate cousins may be more similar to our own language than previously thought. Image credit: Republica.

Chimpanzees’ Gestural Communication Follows Same Laws as Human Language: Study

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, gestures of chimpanzees follow the same mathematical patterns — known...

Newborns have innate skills needed to pick out words. Image credit: Cheryl Holt.

Study: Newborn Babies Have Innate Skills to Pick Out Individual Words

Jan 31, 2019 by News Staff

Humans are born with operational language processing and memory capacities and can use at least two types of cues to segment otherwise continuous speech,...

Romeo et al suggest talking with children from early age could promote language skills regardless of socioeconomic status. Image credit: Sasin Tipchai.

Study: Adult-Child Conversations Strengthen Language Regions of Developing Brain

Aug 22, 2018 by News Staff

Children who are regularly engaged in conversation by adults may have stronger connections between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas — brain regions...

Dr. Dunn and Dr. Smaers report a positive correlation between vocal repertoire size and the relative size of cortical association areas in non-human primates. Image credit: Herbert Aust.

Primate Study Offers Important Insight into Evolution of Human Speech

Aug 14, 2018 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience has found a link between vocal repertoire and relative size of key regions of the brain. Dr....

Jedek is spoken by about 280 individuals in northern Peninsular Malaysia. Image credit: Lund University.

Previously Unknown Language Emerges in Malaysia

Feb 7, 2018 by News Staff

A team of linguists from Lund University in Sweden announced this week they have identified an endangered minority language known as Jedek that is spoken...

According to Hamrick et al, language is learned, in specific ways, by general-purpose neurocognitive mechanisms that pre-exist Homo sapiens. This image shows functional areas of the human brain; dashed areas shown are commonly left hemisphere dominant. Image credit: Blausen.com staff, doi: 10.15347/wjm/2014.010.

Study: Language is Learned in Ancient General-Purpose Brain Circuits that Predate Humans

Jan 30, 2018 by News Staff

It has often been claimed that we learn language using brain circuits that are specifically dedicated to this purpose. Now, new evidence suggests that...

Papua New Guinea was likely a stepping stone for human migration from Asia to Australia. Bergstroem et al performed genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping on 381 individuals from 85 language groups in Papua New Guinea and found a sharp divide originating 10,000 to 20,000 years ago between lowland and highland groups and a lack of non-New Guinean admixture in the latter. This photo shows drummers and dancers from each village on the beach of Port Moresby, the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. Image credit: Steve Jurvetson / CC BY 2.0.

New Study Reveals Remarkable Genetic Diversity among Papuan New Guinean Peoples

Sep 19, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has analyzed genome-wide data of 381 individuals from 85 language groups...

Dr. Gustafson with a mother-to-be in the fetal biomagnetometer. Image credit: University of Kansas.

Research Provides First Evidence for Fetal Language Discrimination

Aug 10, 2017 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal NeuroReport, a month before they are born, fetuses can distinguish between someone speaking to them...

Mouse song system anatomy and syllable types: (A) proposed anatomy of the rudimentary mouse forebrain vocal communication circuit; (B) comparison with human; (C) comparison with songbird; (D) sonograms of examples syllables of the four syllable categories quantified from a C57 male mouse USV song, labeled according to pitch jumps. Anatomical abbreviations: ADSt - anterior dorsal striatum; Amb - nucleus ambiguous; ASt - anterior striatum; aT - anterior thalamus; Av - nucleus avalanche; HVC - a letter-based name; LArea X - lateral Area X; LMO - lateral mesopallium oval nucleus; LMAN - lateral magnocellular nucleus of the nidopallium; LMC - laryngeal motor cortex; LSC - laryngeal somatosensory cortex; M1 - primary motor cortex; M2 - secondary motor cortex; NIf - interfacial nucleus of the nidopallium; PAG - periaqueductal gray; RA - robust nucleus of the arcopallium; T - thalamus; VL - ventral lateral nucleus of the thalamus; XIIts - 12th vocal motor nucleus, tracheosyringeal part. Image credit: Jonathan Chabout et al, doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00197.

Study: Gene Implicated in Human Language Affects Vocal Communication in Mice

Nov 18, 2016 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, ultrasonic vocal communication in adult mice is affected by the...

Damian Scarf et al. demonstrate that pigeons (Columba livia) trained to discriminate words from non-words picked up on the orthographic properties that define words and used this knowledge to identify words they had never seen before. Image credit: Damian Scarf / University of Otago.

Study: Pigeons Can Learn to Visually Recognize Words

Sep 18, 2016 by News Staff

Pigeons (Columba livia) can learn to distinguish real words from non-words by visually processing their letter combinations, according to a surprising...

Geographic distribution of the 6,452 word lists analyzed in this study. Colors distinguish different linguistic macroareas, regions with relatively little or no contact between them (but with much internal contact between their populations). These are North America (orange), South America (dark green), Eurasia (blue), Africa (green), Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands (red), and Australia (fuchsia). Image credit: Damián E. Blasi et al.

Unrelated Languages Often Use Same Sounds for Common Objects and Ideas, Research Finds

Sep 13, 2016 by News Staff

A careful statistical examination of words from 6,000+ languages shows that humans tend to use the same sounds for common objects and ideas, no matter...

Trained dogs around fMRI scanner. Image credit: Eniko Kubinyi.

Dogs Understand Words and Intonation of Human Speech, New Study Finds

Aug 31, 2016 by News Staff

According to a study led by Dr. Attila Andics of the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, dogs use the left hemisphere to process words and...

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, build a semantic atlas to chart how the brain responds to language. Image credit: University of California, Berkeley.

Researchers Create Detailed ‘Semantic Atlas’ of the Mind

Apr 29, 2016 by News Staff

A team of neuroscientists and psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, has created a detailed ‘semantic atlas’ showing which human...

‘Not’ faces. Image credit: Ohio State University.

Scientists Say ‘Not Face’ is Universal Part of Language

Mar 28, 2016 by News Staff

A team of scientists, led by Ohio State University cognitive researcher Prof. Aleix Martinez, has identified a universal facial expression that is interpreted...

This image shows ‘11:00 a.m.’ in a natural speech recording. Image credit: Simeon Floyd.

Study Uncovers Unusual Method of Communicating Human Concept of Time

Mar 17, 2016 by News Staff

Speakers of the Nheengatú language talk about time of day by pointing at where the Sun would be in the sky at that particular time, according to a study...

New study provides the first experimental evidence for compositional syntax in a wild animal species, the Japanese tit (Parus minor). Image credit: Toshitaka Suzuki.

Scientists: Japanese Tits Speak in Phrases

Mar 8, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Japanese tits combine their calls using specific rules to communicate important compound messages, says an international group of ornithologists led by...

Babies are able to learn abstract relations before the first year of life. Image credit: Kang Heungbo.

Infants Need Free Tongue Movement to Distinguish Speech Sounds, Say Scientists

Oct 13, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr Alison Bruderer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, has discovered a direct link between tongue...

Chestnut-crowned babblers (Pomatostomus ruficeps), SW Queensland, Australia. Image credit: Aviceda / CC BY-SA 3.0.

New Study Reveals Language Precursors in Australian Babblers

Jun 30, 2015 by News Staff

A new study led by Dr Sabrina Engesser from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has revealed that the chestnut-crowned babbler (Pomatostomus ruficeps)...

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