Only a few animal species can learn and produce vocalizations—humans, songbirds, and parrots among them—yet Dr. Erich Jarvis reveals how brain circuits controlling speech evolved from ancient motor pathways and share striking genetic similarities across species separated by 300 million years, reshaping our understanding of language origins. The speech production pathway controlling the larynx is specialized to humans, songbirds, and parrots, while the auditory perception pathway for understanding speech exists across most animals, explaining why dogs comprehend hundreds of words but cannot produce them.