Marc Dax
Marc Dax's work in these field was simple but important. In 1836, he diagnosed patients with speech problems or loss of speech. When he examined their brains after their deaths, he saw that all of these patients have damage to the left side of their brain.

Paul Broca
Paul Broca built on Marc Dax's work by further examining a patient named Tan because the only word he spoke was "tan". He found that Tan had damage to a small section of the neocortex. This section is now known as Broca's area.

Karl Wernicke
Another revolutionary researcher, Karl Wernicke, built on Broca's work. His work, in 1876, showed that language problems also came from damage to another language center in another part of the brain. This part of the brain is commonly called Wernicke's area. He also discovered that there are neural fibers that connect Wernicke's and Broca's area called arcuate fasciculus. Damage to these causes inability to understand spoken or written language.

Chomsky
Chomsky's theory of language acquisition has shown us that the human brain is born with a "language map" which allows us to acquire this remarkably complex process at an accelerated rate.

Language is one of the most important uses of the brain, yet we know little about it. We know that written language is interpreted by the right brain, which views the little symbols, interprets them into letters and sends the message to Broca's area and to Wernicke's. Spoken word is taken in through the auditory cortex, a signal is sent from that to Broca's area, and then to Wernicke's. To speak as a response, the same process is taken, but another step is added. This step involves the Motor Cortex (there is a game involving the motor cortex in the Game Section).

To find out more about the logical side of the brain, explore the links below.