Africa the birthplace of human language, analysis suggests

A new study by a New Zealand researcher provides strong evidence for Africa as the birthplace of human language. An analysis of languages from around the world suggests that, like our genes, human speech originated -- just once -- in sub-Saharan Africa. The research studied the phonemes, or the perceptually distinct units of sound that differentiate words, used in 504 human languages today and found that the number of phonemes is highest in Africa and decreases with increasing distance from Africa.

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