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

by Daniel L. Everett

Overview

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“Few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe [this] will be one of them.” — Edward O. Wilson

At the time of its publication, How Language Began received high acclaim for capturing the fascinating history of mankind’s most incredible creation. Deemed a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s), Daniel L. Everett posits that the near- 7,000 languages that exist today are not only the product of one million years of evolution but also have allowed us to become Earth’s apex predator. Tracing 60,000 generations, Everett debunks long- held theories across a spectrum of disciplines to affi rm the idea that we are not born with an instinct for language. Woven with anecdotes of his nearly forty years of fi eldwork amongst Amazonian hunter- gatherers, this is a “completely enthralling” (Spectator) exploration of our humanity and a landmark study of what makes us human.

“[An] ambitious text. . . . Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes . . . , will help the neophyte along.”— New York Times Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631496264
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	12/17/2019
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	637,250
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Daniel L. Everett is the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University. He has published over 100 articles and twelve books on linguistic theory, including The Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Preface xiv

Introduction 1

Part 1 The First Hominins

1 Rise of the Hominins 13

2 The Fossil Hunters 36

3 The Hominins Depart 48

4 Everyone Speaks Languages of Signs 65

Part 2 Human Biological Adaptations for Language

5 Humans Get a Better Brain 111

6 How the Brain Makes Language Possible 134

7 When the Brain Goes Wrong 160

8 Talking with Tongues 172

Part 3 The Evolution of Language Form

9 Where Grammar Came From 197

10 Talking with the Hands 229

11 Just Good Enough 249

Part 4 Cultural Evolution of Language

12 Communities and Communication 269

Conclusion 291

Suggested Reading 293

Notes 302

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

How Language Began is a dense, ambitious text, attempting to explain the origin story for 60,000 generations of language; this may cause the nonexpert to occasionally feel as if she has wandered by mistake into a lecture at a linguistics conference. But Everett's amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes from his field studies in the Amazonian rain forests, will help the neophyte along. It's worth it in the end to get a glimpse of conversation through his eyes, as humanity's most impressive collective invention.

The New York Times Book Review - Melissa Dahl

"Ambitious...the subject-matter is completely enthralling...Everett is at the very top of his intellectual game."

Spectator - Harry Ritchie

"Moving far outside historical linguistics, Everett credits Homo erectus with having invented language nearly two million years ago. This communicative invention came not—in Everett’s view—in one revolutionary breakthrough but, instead, at the slow pace typical of evolution, as early hominids gradually organized themselves in ever-more-complex social groupings, eventually learning to fashion culturally weighted symbols and then to manipulate such symbols in communicative strings, so setting the evolutionary stage for the planet’s only loquacious species: Homo sapiens. . . . Certain to spark that liveliest form of language—debate!"

Booklist - Bryce Christensen

"When I first became interested in cultural evolution, cognitive revolutionaries would say that Noam Chomsky had proved that an innate language acquisition device was the key to linguistics. Daniel Everett is a leader of the counterrevolution that is putting culture and cultural evolution back at the center of linguistics, and cognition more generally, where I think it belongs. How Language Began is an accessible account of the case for a culture-centered theory of language."

Peter Richerson

"How Language Began occupies a rare literary space that explains complex issues clearly to general readers while being an original contribution to scholarship...the arguments he marshals and insights he provides are impressive...anyone interested in language would gain from reading this book."

Times - Oliver Kamm

"Important and fascinating."

Prospect - Adrian Woolfson

"Very few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe that Daniel L. Everett’s How Language Began will be one of them."

Edward O. Wilson

"An ambitious text.... Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes from his field studies in the Amazonian rain forests, will help the neophyte get along. It’s worth it in the end to get a glimpse of conversation through his eyes, as humanity’s most impressive collective invention."

Melissa Dahl

06/15/2017
In this provocative and ambitious book, linguist Everett (dean of arts & sciences, Bentley Univ., MA; Dark Matter of the Mind) demonstrates the complex and expansive nature of human language and its many communicative forms. Reaching back beyond 6,000 years and replete with many anecdotes and examples, Everett's work describes how humans moved from using "mere communication to language." Applying semantics, linguistic theory, cultural history, and popular culture, he makes a convincing case for the multimodal nature of language—a phenomenon that engages "the whole person—intellectual emotions, hands, mouth, tongue, brain." The richness and intricacy of his ideas seem in part shared with those of psychology professor Michael C.Corballis in The Truth About Language, that human language evolved gradually over time and did not come about as a "sudden emergence." Although detailed and rather sophisticated in its approach and argument, there are no scholarly citations; however, the author does provide a useful "Suggested Reading" list. VERDICT This volume will be of interest to linguists, cultural critics, and anthropologists as well as informed readers interested in the evolution of language.—Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

Library Journal

2017-04-23
A noted linguist explores "the evolutionary history of language as a human invention—from the emergence of our species to the more than 7,000 languages spoken today."Everett (Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious, 2016, etc.), the dean of arts and sciences at Bentley University, mixes esoteric scholarly inquiry with approachable anecdotal interludes to surmise how humans developed written and spoken language and why it became vital for survival and dominance. As in his previous books, Everett energetically attacks the long-accepted theory of Noam Chomsky that humans are born with the language instinct, including innate rules of structure. Everett believes that communication with other humans is a learned activity involving multiple parts of the brain. The author began to formulate his overarching theories of language while studying contemporary hunter-gatherers in the Amazon region of Brazil. His research led him backward through the millennia to the dawning of Homo erectus. Because these early humans formed communities rather than living in isolation, Everett emphasizes that the culture helped develop language and that language in turn advanced culture. In Everett's schematic, language and culture are inseparable, although he states without qualification that language is the "handmaiden" of culture. A major draw of this book is the author's extensive theorizing about not only the origins of human language, but also why something akin to the Tower of Babel developed, with clans living in proximity unable to easily understand one another. Many books about the origin of language aimed at nonexperts tend to skim over the Tower of Babel conundrum. That Everett is skilled at leavening an intellectually challenging treatise with humor is evident on the first page of the introduction: he follows the biblical phrase "In the beginning was the word," attributed to John 1:1, with the quotation "No, it wasn't," attributed to Dan Everett. A worthy book for general readers not well-versed in anthropology, neurology, linguistics, and other technical sciences.

Kirkus Reviews