People can learn a new language in their sleep, a new study suggests.A groundbreaking experiment established it was possible to learn new words and their semantic associations from scratch while in the depths of sleep.

Scientists already know that the fragile neurological connections that form the basis of memory are strengthened during deep sleep, and previous studies have shown that words learned during consciousness can be consolidated by being repeated to a person during sleep.

However, the new research, published in the journal Current Biology, has shown for the first time that a sleeping person can be introduced to word associations for the first time and can go o to recall them while...