First results for a nationwide initiative that aims at cracking language’s mysteries
Language is one of the most powerful tools that humans possess. And yet, remarkably little is known about its origins and future: How did humans evolve the faculty for language, and how will it respond to new technologies? After four years of research, the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Evolving Language expands its scope by adding the University of Neuchâtel as a third home institution next to the Universities of Zurich and Geneva.
Promising results after only 4 years
Four years after its launch, the NCCR Evolving Language is proving the success of its bold commitment to unite researchers from across Switzerland and diverse fields of study. “The intellectual overlap between the disciplines is actually far greater than anyone would have thought. We are interested in the same questions, but simply didn’t speak the same language”, says Klaus Zuberbühler, a professor at the University of Neuchâtel and co-director of the NCCR.
A mystery to this day
Language is the culmination of an evolutionary journey tracing back to the very dawn of humanity. The emergence of this distinctly human ability likely stemmed from a convergence of many different abilities that have parallels in other animals, but how exactly this happened has remained a mystery. At the same time, the trajectory of language becomes increasingly uncertain in the face of new technologies from artificial intelligence and neuro-engineering, with challenging consequences. “To face these challenges, the NCCR integrates an unprecedented array of expertise from the natural, social, and computational sciences as well as from the humanities and medicine in a joint framework of Evolutionary Language Science,” states Balthasar Bickel, a professor at the University of Zurich and the director of the NCCR.
Primatologists and linguists
To illustrate, primatologists joined with linguists to show that understanding events (or “who is doing what to whom”) relies on specific cognitive processes that are shared across great apes, children and adults. Such event understanding is a fundamental building block of how we build sentences. Psycholinguists and primatologists have untangled the origins of child-directed speech in humans, a central feature that makes it possible for language to be transmitted across generations. Finally, neuroscientists and medical practitioners have advanced the use of brain imaging and virtual reality to facilitate word learning in healthy participants with possible applications in stroke patients. “Results like these open up many exciting research avenues, both in theoretical and applied domains and we are looking forward to exploring these in the next few years,” comments Daphné Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva and co-director of the NCCR.
From Neurosciences to ChatGPT
Starting June, the NCCR Evolving Language adds the University of Neuchâtel as a home institution, expanding and deepening research in animal behaviour and cognitive science. The NCCR also adds new expertise in neuroscience, genetics, and anthropology in its network to explain the phenomenon of language change. “Humans are unique in constantly changing their communication system and transmitting the changes to the next generation with striking success. What makes this possible and how will it be affected by artificial agents such as chatGPT and by neuro-engineering tools such as brain stimulation?” asks Bickel.
49 research groups under one umbrella
The NCCR Evolving Language is co-funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) together with the Universities of Zurich (leading house), Geneva and Neuchâtel (co-leading houses) and partners at ETH Zürich, IDIAP Martigny and the University of Fribourg. The variety of expertise brought together by the NCCR Evolving Language to solve the past, present and future of language is unique in the world. “As a direct reflection of this richness, the centre is the biggest ever NCCR regrouping 49 PIs closely working together,” co-director Bavelier emphasises.
