Songbird speech

Just ran into this paper that knocks down FoxP2 in songbirds. We've mentioned FoxP2 before on the bayblab as it is necessary for proper language development in humans. And indeed these songbirds are unable to properly imitate songs after knockdown of FoxP2 in a particular brain area. This really strongly suggests an evolutionary relationship between bird songs, (at least learned bird songs) and human language. An animal model for language development = Cool.