Ancient written languages emerged as a revolutionary development in human history, allowing civilizations to record important ...

Researchers investigating how the first writing arose identified the motifs on preliterate "cylinder seals" used in the trade of agricultural products and textiles. When you purchase through links on ...

The world’s oldest known writing system may have had its origins in the imagery on decorated cylinders used to denote ownership or record transactions. Some of the symbols on these cylinder seals ...

A new study claims to have identified the first speakers of Indo-European language, which gave rise to English, Sanskrit and hundreds of others. By Carl Zimmer In 1786, a British judge named William ...

For more than 150 years ago, the assumption that language is a singular event has hampered progress in explaining its evolution. Another obstacle was the failure to recognize that certain social ...

Human language capacities developed primarily to aid in rearing children, according to this lucid debut from biologist Beekman. Babies are born “underbaked,” Beekman writes, explaining that because ...