An accessible exploration of a burgeoning new field: the incredible evolution of language
The first popular book to recount the exciting, very recent developments in tracing the origins of language, The First Word is at the forefront of a controversial, compelling new field. Acclaimed science writer Christine Kenneally explains how a relatively small group of scientists that include Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker assembled the astounding narrative of … More >>
The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language
I was hoping for more—it’s mainly linguistics. But the descriptions of the Chomsky/antiChomsky controversies, and the language of apes, are interesting.
Rating: 3 / 5
More about Noam Chomsky than you need to know. Read Pinker’s How the Mind Works instead.
Rating: 5 / 5
I enjoyed this book – a great range of anecdotes and examples that helped me to understand much about language that I had not known of before.
Rating: 5 / 5
I expected to learn about various theories on the origins of language, but the book does not contain much on this subject. Instead, it introduces the environment in which such theories may flourish, and it does it very well : the author has a great talent for writing about science and scientists, and this suffices to make the book an interesting reading.
As for the origins od language, I’ll have to continue to rely on “The Singing Neanderthals” by Steven Mithen, and chapter 8 of Jackendoff’s “Foundations of language”.
Rating: 3 / 5
The study of the origins of language, as we learn in this book, is in many ways a new field. It is a field which involves not only linguistics, but also biology, anthropology, computer science, and so on. Christine Kenneally tries to cover the specific points of contention as she reviews the field, and therefore the book is certainly not light on content. But this book is written with a very engaging style, and because it assumes very little knowledge, it is certainly accessible to us non-linguists.
The book has much interesting information, and you will learn a lot about the evolution of language. It covers how the field started, and how for a long time people claimed that language just “appeared” all at once, and that it did not evolve (a view that few people hold now.) It covers how experiments have deduced facts about our brains by comparing us to apes and other animals, and how there is no a single specific “language” part of the brain. It also covers how almost all parts of the brain that facilitate language in humans are also present in apes. It is written from a mostly-neutral standpoint, presenting the theories of Pinker, Chomsky, and others without picking who is “correct” in most cases.
Unfortunately, the book has some organizational issues. It jumps around, and it often delves too deeply into less interesting personal clashes among the academics. However, overall, this book is a good read, and I certainly learned a lot from it.
Rating: 4 / 5