It's a concept that sounds alien to most English and French speakers: in some languages, such as Chinese and Zulu, the same word can mean "time," "gourd" or "200" -- the definition depends solely on the speaker's pitch. These tone languages are scattered unevenly around the world, and British researchers have recently pointed out that their distribution matches that of two gene variants in the population. This finding led to the hypothesis that the variation in these genes influenced how language evolved over time. The older variants seem to favour tonal speech, suggesting that all languages were tonal to start with. But once the genes had changed and started to spread in the population, the local dialect began to change as well. This evolution likely happened over many generations, leading to the development of atonal languages such as Spanish and German.

The research hit a nerve, as language is one of the main characteristics distinguishing humans from other animals. But the origin of mankind's ability to communicate through speech, and the role that genes play in this respect, remain controversial.

Online Facts and Stats

• according to wikipedia, a language is "a system used to facilitate communication among higher animals and/or computers"
• children's language acquisition is independent of culture -- they all start to speak with roughly the same proficiency around the same age
• as of early 2007, there are 6,912 living human languages in the world (Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th Ed.)
• 516 of these languages are classified as nearly extinct, i.e. "only a few elderly speakers are still living"
• for at least 300 years, humans have attempted to teach chimps to talk -- to no avail
• the FOXP2 gene, which has been linked to language, exists in chimps and mice, but the human version is distinctly different from theirs
• chimps can sign, but their "language" relies on symbols and lacks syntax and grammar
• in all human languages, the task of showing who did what to whom is one of the principal functions of grammar
• sign languages have unique linguistic features due to the ability to produce meaning in different parts of the visual field, e.g. with the hands, facial expression and body posture