Language and Species |
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| Author:
| Bickerton, Derek |
| ISBN: | 978-0-226-04610-5 |
| Publication Date: | Dec 1990 |
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $36.00 |
Book Description:
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Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic fossils" such as "ape talk," the "two-word" stage of small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive "protolanguage" could have offered
Homo erectus a novel ecological niche. He goes on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into the...
More Description Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic fossils" such as "ape talk," the "two-word" stage of small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive "protolanguage" could have offered Homo erectus a novel ecological niche. He goes on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into the languages we speak today.
"You are drawn into [Bickerton's] appreciation of the dominant role language plays not only in what we say, but in what we think and, therefore, what we are."--Robert Wright, New York Times Book Review
"The evolution of language is a fascinating topic, and Bickerton's Language and Species is the best introduction we have."--John C. Marshall, Nature