EVOLANG XVI: International Conference on the Evolution of Language

EVOLANG XVI is the sixteenth edition of the International Conference on the Evolution of Language, the world's leading interdisciplinary forum for research into how human language originated and evolved over biological and cultural timescales. Bringing together scholars from linguistics, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, primatology, and anthropology, EVOLANG is unique in the breadth of perspectives it integrates.

Topics include the biological prerequisites for language, cultural transmission and language change, computational modeling of language evolution, comparative animal communication, the genetics of language, and the interplay between language and cognition. The conference is indispensable for researchers who believe that understanding language requires understanding its evolutionary history, as well as for students entering this richly interdisciplinary field. EVOLANG 2026 promises lively debate across methodological and theoretical divides.

language evolution language origins evolutionary biology of language cognitive science computational modeling of language primatology biolinguistics cultural evolution of language