Scientists have predicted that human linguistic diversity flourished between 3,000 and 1,000 years ago, before declining with the rise of multinational states and colonial expansion.

A new study coauthored by Yale linguist Claire Bowern suggests that tens of thousands of languages were spoken between 1,000 and 3,000 years ago.

During a lost ‘golden age’ of language, humans may have spoken tens of thousands of different tongues, a new study suggests