IsisCB Explore

Book ID: CBB975378752

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention (2017)

Everett, Daniel Leonard (Author)

Liveright Publishing Corporation A Division of W.W. Norton and Company

ISBN: 9780871407955

Publication Date: 2017
Physical Details: 352
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

Google Books

Academia.edu

Speech Paleoanthropology Comparative linguistics Linguistics; philology Language and languages

How Language Began revolutionizes our understanding of the one tool that has allowed us to become the "lords of the planet."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 seven thousand 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.Language began, Everett theorizes, with Homo Erectus, who catalyzed words through culturally invented symbols. Early humans, as their brains grew larger, incorporated gestures and voice intonations to communicate, all of which built on each other for 60,000 generations. Tracing crucial shifts and developments across the ages, Everett breaks down every component of speech, from harnessing control of more than a hundred respiratory muscles in the larynx and diaphragm, to mastering the use of the tongue. Moving on from biology to execution, Everett explores why elements such as grammar and storytelling are not nearly as critical to language as one might suspect.In the book’s final section, Cultural Evolution of Language, Everett takes the ever-debated “language gap” to task, delving into the chasm that separates “us” from “the animals.” He approaches the subject from various disciplines, including anthropology, neuroscience, and archaeology, to reveal that it was social complexity, as well as cultural, physiological, and neurological superiority, that allowed humans―with our clawless hands, breakable bones, and soft skin―to become the apex predator.How Language Began ultimately explains what we know, what we’d like to know, and what we likely never will know about how humans went from mere communication to language. Based on nearly forty years of fieldwork, Everett debunks long-held theories by some of history’s greatest thinkers, from Plato to Chomsky. The result is an invaluable study of what makes us human. 20 illustrations; map

...More

Reviewed By

Review Gregory Michael Nixon (2018) Review of "How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 297-300). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB975378752/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Wang, Haicheng; (2014)
Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB001422620/)

Article Sreekumar, P.; (2009)
Francis Whyte Ellis and the Beginning of Comparative Dravidian Linguistics (/isis/citation/CBB001211632/)

Article Judith Kaplan; (2017)
From Lexicostatistics to Lexomics: Basic Vocabulary and the Study of Language Prehistory (/isis/citation/CBB198454726/)

Article Kathryn de Luna; (2018)
Inciteful Language: Knowing and Naming Technology in South Central Africa (/isis/citation/CBB565107621/)

Thesis Luke Anthony McMullan; (2021)
The Rise of Philology in Britain: Explaining the Progress of Knowledge, 1750–1859 (/isis/citation/CBB120032710/)

Article Sietske Fransen; (2017)
Latin in a Time of Change: The Choice of Language as Signifier of a New Science? (/isis/citation/CBB304373767/)

Article Meghan Odsliv Bratkovich; (2018)
Shining Light on Language for, in, and as Science Content (/isis/citation/CBB890247101/)

Article Porter, James I.; (2008--2009)
Erich Auerbach and the Judaizing of Philology (/isis/citation/CBB001033589/)

Article Bechraoui, Mohamed-Fadhel; (2013)
Les premières grammaires françaises à l'usage des Persans (/isis/citation/CBB001211988/)

Book Matthaios, Stephanos; Montanari, Franco; Rengakos, Antonios; (2011)
Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts (/isis/citation/CBB001211995/)

Book Noam Chomsky; Andrea Moro; (2022)
The Secrets of Words (/isis/citation/CBB085410471/)

Book Cook, Harold John; Dupré, Sven; (2012)
Translating Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries (/isis/citation/CBB001420402/)

Article Bastardas-Boada, Albert; (2014)
Towards a Complex-Figurational Socio-Linguistics: Some Contributions From Physics, Ecology and the Sciences of Complexity (/isis/citation/CBB001420224/)

Thesis Erard, Michael-Jean; (2000)
Inscribing language: Writing and scientific representation in American linguistics (/isis/citation/CBB001562590/)

Book Freire, José Ribamar Bessa; Rosa, Maria Carlota; (2003)
Línguas Gerais: política lingüística e Catequese na América do Sul no período colonial (/isis/citation/CBB000640213/)

Book d'Hulst, Yves; Rooryck, Johan; Schroten, Jan; (2001)
Romance languages and linguistic theory 1999: Selected papers from “Going Romance” 1999, Leiden, 9-11 December (/isis/citation/CBB000100041/)

Article Michiel Leezenberg; (2023)
From Cosmopolitan to Vernacular in the Language Sciences: A Global History Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB848075999/)

Article Métraux, Alexandre; (2007)
Opening Remarks on the History of Science in Yiddish (/isis/citation/CBB000720229/)

Article Brian, Éric; (2006)
Combinaisons et disposition. Langue universelle et géométrie de situation chez Condorcet (1793-1794) (/isis/citation/CBB000772989/)

Article Keipert, Helmut; (2013)
Die Pallas-Redaktion der Petersburger Vocabularia comparativa und ihre Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der slavischen Sprachwissenschaft (/isis/citation/CBB001211990/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}