A new study from brain researchers helps explain how the human brain evolved, or changed over time, to permit people to speak and write. This new research may also help people who are learning a new language. Michael Ullman is the lead researcher. He is a professor at Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, D.C. He has been studying language learning for more than 20 years. Ullman says his research shows that the human brain does not have a special area or system for making language. Over time, he says, we have simply reused, or co-opted, parts of our brain for language. And those parts, he says, are ancient, older even than humans themselves. “This study examines the theoretical framework that language is learned, stored and processed in two ancient, so, pre-existing humans, learning and memory systems in the brain. And these have been co-opted, reused. for language in humans.”