Progovac's study challenges two dominant narratives in human evolution: "survival of the fittest" (physical strength) and "survival of the friendliest" (prosociality). While both played a role, ...

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" ...

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

The study of language evolution and learning addresses the complex interplay between cultural dynamics and biological predispositions in shaping human communication. Researchers employ experimental ...

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

As the parent of two teenagers, being a linguist did not adequately prepare me for the strange things that sometimes come out of their mouths. For example, "like" is omnipresent, "hecka" punctuates ...

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 ...

Throughout human history, there have been many instances where two populations came into contact—especially in the past few thousand years because of large-scale migrations as a consequence of ...

Comparative Language Studies investigates the structural, semantic and pragmatic similarities and differences across languages. It draws on methodologies from corpus linguistics, experimental design ...

🛍️ Amazon Big Spring Sale: 100+ editor-approved deals worth buying right now 🛍️ By Andrew Paul Published Feb 1, 2024 2:00 PM EST Add Popular Science (opens in a new tab) Adding us as a Preferred ...

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been interested in writing and acting, but I’m constantly curious and take note of what people say and how they say it. As you know, facial expressions and tone of voice ...