Language Acquisition

The Poet’s Gene: Language in Williams Syndrome

Williams Syndrome presents a fascinating linguistic paradox where remarkable verbal eloquence and a love for unusual words coexist with significant…

6 months ago

The Unspoken Tutor: How Games Teach Language

How do video games teach us to navigate new worlds and master complex actions without a single word of instruction?…

6 months ago

The Child Who Forgot to Speak: Childhood L1 Attrition

We often worry about losing a second language, but what happens when a child starts to forget their first? First-language…

6 months ago

Does Language Make You Better at Math?

Why do children in some countries seem to learn arithmetic faster? The answer may lie not in their schools, but…

6 months ago

Why Does ‘Mom’ Sound the Same Everywhere?

From Mandarin's 'māma' to Swahili's 'mama', the word for 'mother' is strikingly similar everywhere, but it's not a linguistic coincidence.…

6 months ago

Why We ‘Baby Talk’: The Science

That high-pitched, singsong voice adults use with babies is more than just cute—it’s a powerful linguistic tool called Parentese. Far…

6 months ago

When a Community Has No Language

Before established sign languages, how did deaf children in isolation communicate? This post explores "home sign," the remarkable gestural systems…

6 months ago

The Hidden Logic of Baby Babble

Is a baby's babbling just adorable, random noise? Far from it. Linguists have discovered that babbling is a highly structured…

6 months ago

Cracking the Code Before Words: The Infant’s Amazing Ability to Find Word Boundaries

To an infant, spoken language is a continuous, unbroken river of sound. So how do they learn where one word…

6 months ago

The Girl Who Couldn’t Speak: Genie and the Tragic Limits of the Critical Period for Language

The tragic case of "Genie," a feral child discovered in 1970 after a decade of silent isolation, offers a harrowing…

6 months ago

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