Language

Games illustration with a green background

LanguageJune 17, 2025

Science Crossword: Throwing Shades

Play this crossword inspired by the July/August 2025 issue of Scientific American

Aimee Lucido

LanguageMay 20, 2025

Science Crossword: Light Touch

Play this crossword inspired by the June 2025 issue of Scientific American

Aimee Lucido

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LanguageMay 9, 2025

Linguists Find Proof of Sweeping Language Pattern Once Deemed a ‘Hoax’

Inuit languages really do have many words for snow, linguists found—and other languages have conceptual specialties, too, potentially revealing what a culture values

Cody Cottier

LanguageApril 15, 2025

Science Crossword: Hidden Figures

Play this crossword inspired by the May 2025 issue of Scientific American

Aimee Lucido

Illustration of stylized double faced head with speech bubble inside and jumbled text

LanguageApril 14, 2025

Language Differences Control Your Brain’s Sentence-Prediction Habits

The brain’s response to information depends on language’s grammatical structure

Gayoung Lee

Close up portrait of a mature male bonobo making a vocalization

AnimalsApril 3, 2025

Bonobos’ Complex Calls Share an Extraordinary Trait with Human Language

Bonobos’ grunts, peeps and whistles may share an advanced linguistic property with human language

Cody Cottier

LanguageMarch 18, 2025

Science Crossword: Blacked Out

Play this crossword inspired by the April 2025 issue of Scientific American

Aimee Lucido

HMMM..speech bubble on green spiral background

LanguageFebruary 28, 2025

Interjections Are, Uh, More Important than We Thought

Utterances like um, wow and mm-hmm aren’t garbage—they keep conversations flowing

Bob Holmes, Knowable Magazine

Black and white line drawing of a boy with a pained expression on his face surrounded by lightning bolts, exclamation points, lines, and stars on a red background

LanguageFebruary 21, 2025

Why “Ow!” Needs Absolutely No Translation

The sounds we make during emotional moments or when experiencing pain may not be arbitrary

Katarzyna Pisanski, Aitana García Arasco, Maïa Ponsonnet

A mother chimpanzee, Beryl, sits in front of her infant, Lindsay, on the ground in a remote forest in Uganda

BehaviorFebruary 20, 2025

Surprising Chimpanzee Signal Reveals Secrets of Ape Communication

A rare and deliberate signal between a mother chimpanzee and her daughter raises new questions about ape communication, culture and the meaning of sharing a language

Avery Schuyler Nunn

LanguageFebruary 18, 2025

Science Crossword: Creative Bursts

Play this crossword inspired by the March 2025 issue of Scientific American

Aimee Lucido

A mother humpback whale and her calf swimming just below the surface of the water

AnimalsFebruary 6, 2025

Whale Songs Obey Basic Rules of Human Languages

Humpback whales learn their haunting melodies in much the same way humans learn words

Cody Cottier