Bernd Brunner, a native German speaker, is unhappy that so many people find his language hard on their ears. I confess that I had a negative opinion of spoken German, until I started watching German ...

Of course, plenty of languages share words that have similar sounds because they’re either “descended” from the same original language (such as Spanish “hospital” and French “hopital,” both of which ...

We often think of babies as blank canvases with little ability to learn during the first few weeks of life. But babies actually start processing language and speech incredibly early. Even while in the ...

Toddlers are learning language skills earlier than expected and by the age of 18 months understand enough of the lexicon of their own language to recognize how speakers use sounds to convey meaning.

Languages that evolve at high elevations are more likely to include a sound that’s easier to make when the air is thinner, new research shows. Photo by Flickr user twicepix You likely don’t give a ton ...

Scientists at UCSF have uncovered some tantalizing clues into the complex process of how the brain hears and interprets human voices, and transforms an influx of meaningless sounds into language.

We live in a sea of constant sounds and noises. Some are meaningful and some are not. However, it seems as though we have a remarkable ability to discriminate human speech from all of those other ...