Forty years ago, I published an article, "Can a Chimpanzee Create a Sentence?" My answer was, definitively, "No." At the time, that conclusion was controversial. It was also headline news because ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. Listen 0:00 Back in the 1970s, a ...

Language processing in humans depends on the neuronal connection between language areas in the brain. Until recently, this language network was thought to be uniquely human. Now, in a discovery ...

SPOKANE, Wash. Washoe, a female chimpanzee believed to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept. Washoe, who first ...

When we think about what sets humans apart from other animals, language often comes to mind. Language is more than words—it also relies on the ability to build shared understanding through ...

Humans are known to invent private hand gestures. Chimps in the wild do, too, a new study suggests. By Brandon Keim Parents and their children, or people who know each other well, often share some ...

Chimpanzees are our closest living ancestors, however now researchers say, despite not being able to speak they have a ...

Human speech isn’t something we’re born with. Rather, we acquire the ability to communicate using speech through a set of developmental stages we pass through as we grow from infancy. New research on ...

New research on the rhythmic drumming and complex calls of chimpanzees could point scientists to the origins of language. Chimpanzees drum and make calls to communicate. Two new studies have found ...