Language evolution 'in silico'

We all speak a language and have intuitions about it: from its vocabulary to the way words are put together according to its grammar. However, much is still to be understood about the processes that make language even possible and those that shape its evolution. Recent computational advances have enabled us to address these issues from new angles. This article highlights methods and findings that the age of computation has given rise to, from learning from large-scale data from thousands of languages to the evolution of languages created by artificial intelligence.