Diving into the World of Languages: UZH Magazine featuring the MSc Evolutionary Science
The UZH Magazine ran a feature article on the new interdisciplinary Master of Science in Evolutionary Science on 12th February 2026, including interviews with students, program director Paul Widmer and program coordinator Piera Filippi:
"What’s the difference between animal communication and human languages? And how will we talk to each other and to machines in future in the age of digitalization and artificial intelligence? These are precisely the questions at the heart of the Master’s program in Evolutionary Language Science, which was launched at the University of Zurich in the 2025 Fall Semester. The two-year program is designed as a single-subject Master’s without any minor subjects. It is run by the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution at UZH.
The word “interdisciplinary” is particularly apt, as the program covers a broad range of topics and is equally broad in terms of the disciplines it covers. Linguistic research at the institute has been taking place for years in close collaboration with biologists at UZH. For example, a joint study is being conducted into the extent to which the languages of the world have evolved in parallel with human genes."
Read the article online
link: https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/news/2026/language-evolution.html