Cognitive elements of language have existed for 40 million years

(University of Zurich) Humans are not the only beings that can identify rules in complex language-like constructions -- monkeys and great apes can do so, too, a study at the University of Zurich has shown. Researchers at the Department of Comparative Language Science of UZH used a series of experiments based on an 'artificial grammar' to conclude that this ability can be traced back to our ancient primate ancestors.