On October 1st, 2025, Dr. Jane Goodall passed. Her contributions throughout her long life transformed the field of primatology and reshaped the way we understand humans within the animal kingdom. Here, the members of the NCCR Evolving Language reflect on the impact Dr. Goodall has had, and continues to have, on their work and lives.
For decades, we have seen dogs as expert interpreters of human cues – animals that we’ve shaped through artificial selection to fit in with our lifestyles. What if that was only half of the story? Recent findings from researchers of the NCCR Evolving Language challenge this one-sided model and propose a more reciprocal one: communication between humans and canids evolved not just as a linear result of human-driven selection, but rather developed through an interactive process of mutual influence.
On March 18, 2025, the famous bonobo Kanzi died at age 44. But who was Kanzi? Dive into his fascinating life story and hear about our researchers’ encounter with him!
Discover the backstage of research at the NCCR Evolving Language with Victoria, intern with us during the month of December! After discussing their work and background with researchers Alexis Hervais-Adelman and Marion Bouffier, Victoria has put together a summary for you.
Découvrez le témoignage d’une élève en classe de 11ème en stage au NCCR Evolving Language sur le campus de Genève qui décrit deux expériences d’un chercheur qu’elle a pu observer.
Gender and language are inextricably linked, in various ways. Together with experts from the fields of linguistics, psychology and neurolinguistics, we tried to disentangle this topic. Follow us on a journey to discover the origins, present, and future of gender in languages.
AI innovations like the chatbot ChatGPT are enthusiastically celebrated and they trigger fears. Ethical discussions on AI should never revolve around the technology alone, says bioethicist Samia Hurst. Above all, it is important that the social, political and economic frameworks in which they are used are right.
Valentina Borghesani is exploring how meaning is created in our brains. To do so, she works with aphasia patients, but increasingly also with AI language models that can be used […]
How smart is ChatGPT really? Prof. Martin Volk and Prof. Paola Merlo, Researchers of the NCCR Evolving Language, are testing the chatbot and developing their own smart language models that […]
Researchers from the University of Lausanne and the EPFL are calling on the Swiss population to annotate emojis. The study aims to unravel the way in which we share our emotions via instant messaging. This is an innovative research topic that is particularly interesting for the preservation of Switzerland’s linguistic heritage.