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Abstract

The unique capacity for language is a fundamental trait of humankind, and is of intense interest across diverse fields including linguistics, anthropology, cognitive and neuro-science, and molecular and evolutionary biology. Importantly, language is not an abstract entity, but has developed within a biological system with its own capacities and constraints. Thus, understanding the biology of language, including underlying genetic mechanisms, has the potential to inform some of the central questions in the language sciences such as what are the innate components of the human system that allow language acquisition and what are the biological constraints on this system that determine what constitutes a possible language. To date, the genetic underpinnings of language remain poorly understood as, with current techniques, the molecular mechanisms acting during communicative behavior cannot be directly assayed in humans. Non-human animals do not have language, but they do display complex vocal communicative abilities that share aspects of human vocal communication. For example some animals use antiphonal vocalizations in which vocal-motor outputs are adapted in response to conspecific vocalizations. Others display simple syntax in which sound types are combined in a specific order. A handful of animal species are able to perform vocal production learning, the ability to learn and modify vocalizations based on conspecific inputs – an ability essential for the evolution of spoken language. Thus we can use animal models to understand how these abilities are evolutionarily encoded in the brain and gain insights into the origins of spoken language. I will discuss the use of animal models to directly interrogate genetic networks acting in the brain during communicative behavior. I will also show how we can couple these animal models with cell based assays and in vitro molecular techniques to understand the function of these genes at a molecular, cellular and whole brain level. Ultimately we can apply these findings to human populations to determine how genetic variants relate to human speech and language phenotypes.