The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language
A compelling look at the quest for the origins of human language from an accomplished linguist
Language is a distinctly human gift. However, because it leaves no permanent trace, its evolution has long been a mystery, and it is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being.
The First Word is the compelling story of the quest for the origins of human language. The book follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how language developed?how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why scientists are at last able to explore the subject. For more than a hundred years, language evolution was considered a scientific taboo. Kenneally focuses on figures like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, along with cognitive scientists, biologists, geneticists, and animal researchers, in order to answer the fundamental question: Is language a uniquely human phenomenon?
The First Word is the first book of its kind written for a general audience. Sure to appeal to fans of Steven Pinker?s The Language Instinct and Jared Diamond?s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Kenneally?s book is set to join them as a seminal account of human history.
A compelling look at the quest for the origins of human language from an accomplished linguist
Language is a distinctly human gift. However, because it leaves no permanent trace, its evolution has long been a mystery, and it is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being.
The First Word is the compelling story of the quest for the origins of human language. The book follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how language developed?how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why scientists are at last able to explore the subject. For more than a hundred years, language evolution was considered a scientific taboo. Kenneally focuses on figures like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, along with cognitive scientists, biologists, geneticists, and animal researchers, in order to answer the fundamental question: Is language a uniquely human phenomenon?
The First Word is the first book of its kind written for a general audience. Sure to appeal to fans of Steven Pinker?s The Language Instinct and Jared Diamond?s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Kenneally?s book is set to join them as a seminal account of human history.
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| From: Amazon Posted: Nov 29, 2007 Type: User Review |
Comprehensive view of how language may havedeveloped
Kenneally suggests answers questions we didn't even know to pose: why do we speak? Why don't other animals? What do we convey? Are we hard-wired for speech, or did speech happen by mistake? The author has extensive -- very extensive -- knowledge...
|
 4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Nov 27, 2007 Type: User Review |
YOU'RE DOING IT NOW
A thoughtfully assembled and compelling book that surveys the evolving range of ideas about language -- without using the word "communication" too often. Not surprisingly the human sense of superiority, as it relies on language, is further and...
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4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Oct 31, 2007 Type: User Review |
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.
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 3.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Oct 18, 2007 Type: User Review |
An Impressive Suite
The development of our incredible ability to make meanings out scribbles on a rock or a page remains a stunning evolutionary leap. This book is a wonderful outline of some of the factors that went into the development of language. It is also full...
|
 5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Oct 01, 2007 Type: User Review |
Not the last word
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.
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Sep 10, 2007 Type: User Review |
Oversell
More about Noam Chomsky than you need to know. Read Pinker's How the Mind Works instead.
|
5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Sep 10, 2007 Type: User Review |
Did you know that?
I bought this book after hearing the end of a review on the radio someplace, and thought it would be fun to have it on my bookshelf next to "The Last Word" (a celebration of unusual lives edited by Marvin Seigal). I thought it would be tracing...
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4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Sep 05, 2007 Type: User Review |
intellectual giants: a cautionary tale
Personally, it has always (at least since I started to get the hang of evolutionary theory) seemed pretty obvious that the ability for language must have evolved, along with all our (and other life forms) capabilities and features. It came as a...
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5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Aug 18, 2007 Type: User Review |
Evolution vs. Innate Capability
As the title suggests, this book does not lay out a theory for the origins of language. It is a solid effort to capture the debate between linguistics and many other branches of science concerning the origin and development of language, more...
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4.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Aug 14, 2007 Type: User Review |
Everybody's Talking
More than anything else, I came away from The First Word thinking that linguists love to argue. In fact, every few pages I found myself arguing with author Christine Kenneally and I'm not even a linguist. I disagreed with much of the book and...
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5.00/5 |
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