You're listening to brains on where we're serious about being curious.

Do you know what your first word was? Like when you were a baby, do you know?

Um, maybe bird.

Bird? And what's your favorite word now?

Mochi because it's Japanese like sweet and I like it.

The reason I wanted to know your favorite word is that today's episode is all about words and

language. Every time you talk or send a text message, your brain is doing some really complicated

stuff. And listening or reading that text message is equally complicated. Today we're looking

into where language came from and how we're able to learn how to use it today.

Keep listening.

You're listening to brains on from American Public Media. I'm your host Molly Bloom and

here with me today is eight year old Edie Stangline from Minneapolis. Hi Edie, thanks for being here.

I'm happy to be here too. Today's episode was actually inspired by a question that Edie sent

into us and Edie, what was your question that you sent? My question was how does cavemen

communicate? And you were kind of wondering like when you see cavemen in movies, like how do they talk?

Cavemen want Bertie. Exactly. Exactly. So you were wondering how did early humans talk?

And how did language evolve? Like a lot of questions that kids send to us. There is no easy answer

to this one. So for help, we turn to linguist Erica Oakrent who writes for the week and mental

floss. This is a really difficult question because language disappears after you make it. So after

you say something, the words go off into the air and then they're gone. So we can know a lot about

how cavemen, what kind of tools they had, what they ate, what their activities were, their hunting.

But we don't know much about their language because it doesn't get left behind. So we have to

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