Ten years ago this month, a team of University of Oxford scientists published a description of a family who struggled with words. By comparing their DNA, the scientists zeroed in for the first time on a gene associated with language, dubbed FOXP2. In my newest column in Discover, I look back at what scientists have learned over the past decade about how FOXP2 works, and what it tells us–or leaves us wondering–about how language evolved. Check it out.
Most importantly, we’ve learned a few things about FoxP2 that underscore the idea that there is not and could not be any such thing as a “language gene” in any biologically meaningful sense.
[CZ: Indeed. Hence the quotation marks in the headline]
still remember where i was sitting when i first heard about foxp2….
Most importantly, we’ve learned a few things about FoxP2 that underscore the idea that there is not and could not be any such thing as a “language gene” in any biologically meaningful sense.
[CZ: Indeed. Hence the quotation marks in the headline]