How did humans invent any language? How did they communicate back then? How did they know that difficult meant hard and what hard meant, too? – Anika, 10, Georgia
melissamayerDear Anika,
My roommate is a normal cat. When she needs a treat, she smacks her lips. When she wants outside, she paws the door. But she never talks to me using words.
I asked Nancy Bell how my human friends developed language. She studies linguistics at Washington State University.
Bell told me that we don’t know exactly how or when it all started. All kinds of scientists want to figure that out.
“It’s just part of our species that we want to make meaning,” she said. “We want to communicate. That desire is what leads to language.”
Scientists use the word “hominin” … » More …
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