Add Popular Science (opens in a new tab) More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results.

Languages around the world differ greatly in how many grammatical distinctions they make. This variation is observable even between closely related languages. The speakers of Swedish, Danish, and ...

A computational analysis has highlighted the poorly understood relationships and elusive histories of modern sign languages worldwide, revealing two major sign language families shaped by geopolitical ...

The origins of human language remain mysterious. Are we the only animals truly capable of complex speech? Are Homo sapiens the only hominids who could give detailed directions to a far-off freshwater ...

Language connects humans and its shapes how we connect, trade, and share ideas across borders. In 2025, over 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide, yet just a handful dominate global communication.

Portuguese is a Romance language spoken in Portugal, Brazil, and former Portuguese colonial territories. Galician, a dialect spoken in northwestern Spain, shares close linguistic ties with Portuguese.