Highly used words stay closer to other highly used words, defining semantically popular regions. Left: intuitive cartoon. Right: scatter plots calculated using Word2vec and wordfreq datasets. Credit: Guo et al. (Proceedings B, 2026). Human languages are known to have grown and changed considerably over the course of history, often reflecting technological, cultural, and societal shifts. Studying the evolution of languages can thus offer valuable insight into how human societies and cultures have transformed over time. Researchers at Fudan, Harvard, and Stony Brook University recently explored the evolution of 22 languages using a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, statistical methods, and a massive cache of real linguistics data. Their paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences , identifies a common statistical structure for all the languages they examined and the patterns underpinning their evolution.…