linguistics

IU’s Language Training Center collaborated with Ukrainians in Indiana to create the books after Russia's invasion.

Do we learn gestures by watching others make them? Or do our patterns of gesture originate from language itself?

Even very different kinds of books share some common characteristics, like the pattern of their function words. These are the short connector words such as pronouns and prepositions, as well as articles, conjunctions, negations and auxiliary verbs.

When we talk to people on the phone who we know well, we can often predict their physical gestures while they're talking, even if we can't see them. That's because we've seen them do it before, and because of cues from their voices.

Today, we're talking about talking, and parrots, which can learn to talk, and is why studying the way parrots vocalize can help scientists better understand the way humans vocalize. If you think about it, bird song and talking have a lot in common.

Researchers think that the first steps in the creation of a sign language likely resemble a game of charades. According to one study, it only takes five generations of learners for a pantomime to become a stable sign.