THE birth of a new language is such a rare event that scientists who want to watch it happen generally have to make do with computer simulations. Bruno Galantucci, a cognitive scientist at Yale University in America, has developed a human alternative, based on the principle that necessity is the mother of invention. He asks pairs of strangers to play a computer game in which they have to find one another in a virtual bungalow. This requires them to communicate, but the only way they can do so is by inventing a language. The game is revealing some of the secrets of successful communication.
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