Language is considered one of the attributes that define humans as a unique species. We are the only species capable of using complex language to communicate our feelings, intentions, and even to teach others. Although language is such a unique and complex skill, children can learn it quite quickly. Children's vocabulary grows very quickly once their first words are spoken, going from 5-20 words at 18 months to around 6000 words by age 5 (Bates, 2003). This remarkable ability to acquire language is the basis of a central debate: how much of our ability to acquire, produce and understand language is innate (genetically programmed) and how much is acquired through learning? This essay will focus on the nature versus nurture debate and how research in the field of language has produced evidence for both sides of the issue. The claim of an innate ability to acquire language assumes that we are genetically programmed to acquire language. Human languages ​​require very complex skills such as syntactic (sentence formation) and semantic (sentence meaning) rules. However, we can apply them naturally and automatically hundreds of times a day. If learning a language really means knowing these rules, then language acquisition would pose an enormous task for children. Nativist theorists like Chomsky argue that it would be impossible for children to learn such a complicated set of rules if they were not born with specialized brain structures for language acquisition. Chomsky (1968) suggests that children are born with an innate mechanism specialized in language acquisition. their brain (Language Acquisition Device) which allows them to identify the dependency on the structure of a language and to be able to use these structures efficiently...... middle of paper......, vol. 10, n.2/3, pp. 75-107Baker, Mark. 2005. The innate endowment for language: Overspecified or underspecified. In P. Carruthers, S. Lawrence and S. Stich (eds.) The innate mind: structure and contents. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 156-174.Bates, E. (2003). On the nature and formation of language. Frontiers in Biology The Homo sapiens Brain, 241–265. Crain, S., Pietroski, P. (2001). Nature, culture and universal grammar. Linguistics and philosophy. vol. 24, no. 2, April 2001Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Hertz-Pannier, L., Dubois, J. (2006). Nature and nurture in language acquisition: Anatomical and functional brain imaging studies in newborns. Trends in Neuroscience, Vol. 29, no. 7Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). The myth of linguistic universals: linguistic diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and brain sciences, 32(5), 429-492.