Evolving language in Geneva, with Nina Kazanina and Alexis Hervais-Adelman

In this episode, I talk with Nina Kazanina and Alexis Hervais-Adelman, both at the University of Geneva, about the science behind the upcoming SNL 2026 meeting in Geneva, and the evolutionary and cross-species perspective that the NCCR Evolving Language consortium brings to it. We discuss Nina’s argument that the neural ingredients for a “language of thought” are already available in the spatial navigation system of the rodent brain, and Alexis’s proposal that vocal communication came to domi...