Research Article: Scientists Learn More About the Evolution and Acquisition of Human Language

Of all of the behaviors that human beings engage in, probably none is so complex and yet so commonplace as speaking and listening to language. Human language is what makes communication with others possible and gives order to our physical and social environments. The question, however, of how language is acquired by children has been and continues to be an interesting and lively debate. The inquiry into how much of language is present at birth is far from settled. Research is transforming traditional views of how language may have evolved, how the human brain works, and how children acquire language.

Attempting to reconstruct the evolution of human language has been extremely difficult. Whereas the physical remains of our ancestors have endured for millions of years, we have no record of early speech. Anthropologists hypothesize that human beings as we know them have existed for only 100,000 years, but the earliest...
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