How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention Hardcover – November 7, 2017

How Language Began by Daniel L. EverettControversial and revisionist are two words that came to my mind while reading this book.I can't claim any deep specialty in this area but I've read a few books on the subject of linguistics and thought I was keeping abreast of the subject. I thought that Noam Chomsky was widely accepted as setting the benchmark for linguistic study and that the idea that language developed as a result of a genetic mutation in the last 50,000 years was equally accepted. Likewise, I read Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" and I was sold on the notion that the human brain has a component for handling language.Daniel L. Everett's book "How Language Began" challenges those complacent beliefs. Everett comes across as a one-man wrecking crew to set things straight. Everett sets forth his thesis in the preface: "The story of how humans came to have language is a mostly untold one, full of invention and discovery, and the conclusions that I come to through that story have a long pedigree in the sciences related to language evolution – anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, palaeoneurology, archaeology, biology, neuroscience and primatology. Like any scientist, however, my interpretations are informed by my background, which in this case are my forty years of field research on languages and cultures of North, Central and South America, especially with hunter-gatherers of the Brazilian Amazon. As in my latest monograph on the intersection of psychology and culture, Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious, I deny here that language is an instinct of any kind, as I also deny that it is innate, or inborn. As far back as the work of psychologist Kurt Goldstein in the early twentieth century, researchers have denied that there are language-exclusive cognitive disorders. The absence of such disorders would seem to suggest that language emerges from the individual and not merely from language-specific regions of the brain. And this in turn supports the claim that language is not a relatively recent development, say 50–100,000 years old, possessed exclusively by Homo sapiens. My research suggests that language began with Homo erectus more than one million years ago, and has existed for 60,000 generations. As such, the hero of this story is Homo erectus, upright man, the most intelligent creature that had ever existed until that time. Erectus was the pioneer of language, culture, human migration and adventure. Around three-quarters of a million years before Homo erectus transmogrified into Homo sapiens, their communities sailed almost two hundred miles (320 kilometres) across open ocean and walked nearly the entire world. Erectus communities invented symbols and language, the sort that wouldn’t seem out of place today. Although their languages differed from modern languages in the quantity of their grammatical tools, they were human languages. Of course, as generations came and went, Homo sapiens unsurprisingly improved on what erectus had done, but there are languages still spoken today that are reminiscent of the first ever spoken, and they are not inferior to other modern languages."Everett argues his thesis in great detail, which results in this book being a soup to nuts survey of linguistics, running from anthropology to historical linguistics to the mechanics of how words are formed by the human vocal apparatus.Everett's position on Homo Erectus is both interesting and idiosyncratic. Everett argues cogently that H. Erectus must have had speech capabilities in order to accomplish the things that they accomplished, particularly building sea going vessels capable of taking their species to offshore islands beyond the site of land. Everett also discounts the trustworthiness of scholarship that identifies other homo species:"According to some classifications, there were, soon after and before erectus, other species of Homo co-existing or existing in close succession – Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rudolfensis among others. But, again, most of these various species of Homo are ignored here, with the focus kept on Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Most other Homo species are murky, maybe nothing more than variants of Homo erectus. However, the story of human language evolution changes in no significant way, whether erectus and ergaster were the same or different species."Homo Sapien is simply an improved model of Homo Erectus.Everett offers this on the sophistication of Erectus:"This view of human cooperation in erectus is strongly supported by the archaeological record. As erectus wandered through the Levant, near the Jordan between the Dead Sea to the south and the Hula Valley to the north, they came to stop at the site known today as Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. At this site, going back at least 790,000 years, there is evidence for Acheulean tools, Levallois tools, evidence of controlled fire, organised village life, huts that housed socially specialised tasks of different kinds and other evidence of culture among Homo erectus. Erectus may have stopped here on the way out of Africa. Erectus technology was impressive. They built villages that manifested what almost appears to be central planning, or at least gradual construction under social guidance, as in Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. This is clear evidence of cultural values, organised knowledge and social roles. But such villages are just one example of erectus’s technological and organisational innovation."I didn't know that.Communication exists in sub-homo species. Non-humans use indexes and icons, non-arbitrary referents that mean one thing only. Humans use symbols. For Everett, the human achievement was a brain capable of using symbols and engaging in recursive thinking. Language is not a product of the wiring of the brain any more than a hammer is; both language and a hammer are inventions or tools of the human mind. Everett notes:"A startling conclusion emerges from deficits affecting language: There are no language-only hereditary disorders. And the reason for that is predicted by the theory of language evolution here – namely that there could not be such a deficit because there is no language-specific part of the brain. Language is an invention. The brain is no more specialised for language than for toolmaking, though over time both have affected the development of the brain in general ways that make it more supportive of these tasks."This insight comes after a long discussion of the kinds of ways that things can go wrong in the human ability to talk. Everett's point is well-made. We don't say that a hammer must be "wired" into the brain because someone without thumbs can't use one. There is no genetic condition that effects language - no one is born without an ability to comprehend verbs except insofar as they can also not comprehend nouns and prepositions. Likewise, as a practicing Linguist, Everett has seen far too many grammars to accept the notion that there is a universal language.For readers of anthropology and linguistics this is a very useful work because it shows how much is still open to debate. I think that for someone looking for a survey of linguistics this is a helpful and interesting book. If you are like me and are intrigued by the "gosh-wow!" ideas of "deep history" and "human evolution," this book is well-worth the investment.On the other hand, it is not particularly written for the lay reader. Everett spins off idea after idea and the reader has to stay on his toes to keep up. Also, there is a lot of dense and dry material. For example, the chapters on the mechanics of language are important (and I found them interesting insofar as Everett shared his personal experiences in the field), but I found my enthusiasm for the subject lagging at times. I suspect that for others with less background, these are chapters that can and will be skipped.Obviously, on the whole, I found Everett's thesis captivating and his arguments cogent.PSB

When an elder statesman scholar at the top of his or her field writes a book to summarize what they have learned about their favorite topic, then it's usually worth checking out. Everett does not disappoint. Aside from being a very readable survey of our best current inferences of the emergence of human language, Everett takes the time to explore and teach the proper application of the methods of good science throughout the book. The other strong element of praise that I have for the book is that this is the best appreciation of our ancestor Homo Erectus that I have ever read. Finally, someone is showing Erectus the respect they deserve.On the cautionary side, Everett talks about a lot of other researchers and contributors by name and is not shy about is praise for and qualms or issues about their work. He can be a little prickly at times, but I think that is a good thing. Everett's style strikes me as being a much more honest than leaving the reader to try and read between the lines.I do take issue with his categorical denial of any correlations between the way the brain and computers work, although even in this his arguments are quite cogent. It's just that he doesn't know the machines as well as he thinks he does, and there are two very clear and quite interesting strong parallels between the way the brain works (or doesn't work) and the way the machines perform. Those deal with plasticity and the interesting parallel between the functions of REM sleep and stored data management, and the consequences that flow from depriving either the brain from REM sleep or a stored data environment from routine organizational maintenance. They are strikingly similar. I think that if he knew about those two aspects of the machine world he would be pleasantly surprised. That said, if you are interested in the never ending search for insight into how we became what we are you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

This book may well mean a revolution in our understanding of language, its origin and meaning. It proposes a radically new theory of the origin of language, supported by systematic review of related subjects (Evolution of hominins, Biological adaptations of humans for language, The evolution of language form, and cultural evolution of language).His theory is, contrary to prevalent thinking that language originated after the emergence of Homo Sapiens, that language was primarily for communication (against Chomsky), and was born as an invention of Homo Erectus, approximately two million years ago. He strongly disagrees with the hypothesis that a genetic mutation allowed sapiens to create language a few tens of thousands years ago. This "single shot" generation of language goes against the very slow pace (baby steps) of language evolution. Moreover, there is no evidence supporting a genetic background for language. There are no genetic "language diseases", there is no part of the brain identified solely with language.Theories that define language as structure, serving no primary communication purpose, are not compatible with the relatively high level of technology, social structure, and migrations of erectus, including overseas migrations that required some form of navigation. It is impossible to understand these achievements without symbolic communication, i.e., language.The final proof is that modern languages of amazonian aboriginals are mostly for communication, highly variable, adaptive to their realities, mostly unstructured, thus frontally contradicting Chomsky.All in all, a major contribution, presenting a well supported, radically new theory. Everett could have titled his book "The Origin of Languages"Jorge Urzua, M.D.Santiago de Chile

This book was referenced by Christian from Canguro English teaching resource and was purchased online via Amazon. As a native speaker of Ukrainian & Russian and "fluent" speaker of English and German the content, in a form of the language evolution, provide comprensive insights into the logic, purpose and structure of any language, per se.It helps to put all missing parts of being a non-speaker and speaker together in order to master the languages you have learnt and continue mastering.Highly recommended. Big thank you Daniel Everett!

Very indepth and a must read for anyone interested in where and how language came about.

Very interesting a good reposte to the Harvard school

Very interesting book. Very pleased with my purchase, including delivery.

OK but got a bit too technical - was never going to be an easy read, but on balance, content was fine