Is wittiness a kind of fitness? Ljiljana Progovac explores the idea that quick-wittedness—using and combining words in a ...

Is wit a sign of evolutionary fitness? A new study explores how "quick-wittedness" and ancient verb-noun compounds shaped the evolution of human grammar through sexual selection. Learn how "killjoys" ...

A new analysis of genetic studies proposes that the cognitive capacity for language was already present at least 135,000 years ago.

A comparison with the environmental settings and biological adaptations of nearly 6,000 terrestrial mammalian species demonstrates the profound advantages of human cultural adaptations.

In A Nutshell A linguist argues that wit, humor, and wordplay helped drive human language evolution through sexual selection, ...

Wild chimpanzees alter the meaning of single calls when embedding them into diverse call combinations, mirroring linguistic operations in human language. Human language, however, allows an infinite ...

Language is one of the few faculties that still seems to be uniquely human. Other animals, like chimpanzees and songbirds, have developed elaborate communication systems, but none appears to convey ...

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 ...