Imagine enjoying a picnic as a friend suddenly informed you that there was a spider on your north shoulder. Would you know which shoulder to check? This might sound bizarre to an uninitiated English speaker, but to a speaker of Gugu Yimithirr, it would be perfectly natural. Speakers of this Australian language (and several others around the world) primarily use […]

Just where did language come from and what does it take for a language to develop? If a group of children grew up isolated from the rest of the world, without any access to human language, would they create one of their own and, if so, what would it look like and how long would it take? These questions have […]