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How Language Began

The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention

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How Language Began

By: Daniel L. Everett
Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
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About this listen

Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.

Although fossil hunters and linguists have brought us closer to unearthing the true origins of language, Daniel Everett's discoveries have upended the contemporary linguistic world, reverberating far beyond academic circles. While conducting field research in the Amazonian rainforest, Everett came across an age-old language nestled amongst a tribe of hunter-gatherers. Challenging long-standing principles in the field, Everett now builds on the theory that language was not intrinsic to our species. In order to truly understand its origins, a more interdisciplinary approach is needed - one that accounts as much for our propensity for culture as it does our biological makeup.

©2017 Daniel Everett (P)2018 Tantor Ancient Biological Sciences Linguistics Science Social Sciences Language Evolution
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Everett has written a very in depth and wide ranging treatise. I mostly find it convincing but I'm really in no position to express an opinion several matters like recursion, so another expert with a different view might be equally persuasive. And while I've never found Chomsky particularly persuasive on language being as it were, inbuilt and the result of possibly a genetic mutation, or that it hasn't evolved for the purposes of communication, I wonder if there might be theories other than Chomsky's or Everett (Everett builds a strong case against Chomsky but, in this respect, maybe not a clear enough case for his alternative).

Nonetheless, How Language Began is a brilliant and worthwhile book, providing much food for thought.

in depth and wide ranging

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