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On The Origin Of Language
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Book Synopsis The Origin of Language by : Merritt Ruhlen
Download or read book The Origin of Language written by Merritt Ruhlen and published by Harvard Oriental Series - Opera Minora. This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What can the classification of languages tell us about human origins and human prehistory? This book presents a popular account of the origin of language. It is intended for an audience with no prior knowledge of comparative linguistics, genetics or archaeology. The present volume is a reprint of the 2009 second edition of the book, and includes the text of the first edition (1994) with minor modifications, as well as the scientific evidence for monogenesis, and a Postscript recounting developments in the field since the original publication of the book"--
Book Synopsis History of Language by : Steven Roger Fischer
Download or read book History of Language written by Steven Roger Fischer and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2004-10-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is tempting to take the tremendous rate of contemporary linguistic change for granted. What is required, in fact, is a radical reinterpretation of what language is. Steven Roger Fischer begins his book with an examination of the modes of communication used by dolphins, birds and primates as the first contexts in which the concept of "language" might be applied. As he charts the history of language from the times of Homo erectus, Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens through to the nineteenth century, when the science of linguistics was developed, Fischer analyses the emergence of language as a science and its development as a written form. He considers the rise of pidgin, creole, jargon and slang, as well as the effects radio and television, propaganda, advertising and the media are having on language today. Looking to the future, he shows how electronic media will continue to reshape and re-invent the ways in which we communicate. "[a] delightful and unexpectedly accessible book ... a virtuoso tour of the linguistic world."—The Economist "... few who read this remarkable study will regard language in quite the same way again."—The Good Book Guide
Book Synopsis Origins of Language by : Sverker Johansson
Download or read book Origins of Language written by Sverker Johansson and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-02-17 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sverker Johansson has written an unusual book on language origins, with its emphasis on empirical evidence rather than theory-building. This is a book for the student or researcher who prefers solid data and well-supported conclusions, over speculative scenarios. Much that has been written on the origins of language is characterized by hypothesizing largely unconstrained by evidence. But empirical data do exist, and the purpose of this book is to integrate and review the available evidence from all relevant disciplines, not only linguistics but also, e.g., neurology, primatology, paleoanthropology, and evolutionary biology. The evidence is then used to constrain the multitude of scenarios for language origins, demonstrating that many popular hypotheses are untenable. Among the issues covered: (1) Human evolutionary history, (2) Anatomical prerequisites for language, (3) Animal communication and ape "language", (4) Mind and language, (5) The role of gesture, (6) Innateness, (7) Selective advantage of language, (8) Proto-language.
Book Synopsis On the Origin of Language by : Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Download or read book On the Origin of Language written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume combines Rousseau's essay on the origin of diverse languages with Herder's essay on the genesis of the faculty of speech. Rousseau's essay is important to semiotics and critical theory, as it plays a central role in Jacques Derrida's book Of Grammatology, and both essays are valuable historical and philosophical documents.
Book Synopsis New Perspectives on the Origins of Language by : Claire Lefebvre
Download or read book New Perspectives on the Origins of Language written by Claire Lefebvre and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-11-15 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of how language emerged is one of the most fascinating and difficult problems in science. In recent years, a strong resurgence of interest in the emergence of language from an evolutionary perspective has been helped by the convergence of approaches, methods, and ideas from several disciplines. The selection of contributions in this volume highlight scenarios of language origin and the prerequisites for a faculty of language based on biological, historical, social, cultural, and paleontological forays into the conditions that brought forth and favored language emergence, augmented by insights from sister disciplines. The chapters all reflect new speculation, discoveries and more refined research methods leading to a more focused understanding of the range of possibilities and how we might choose among them. There is much that we do not yet know, but the outlines of the path ahead are ever clearer.
Download or read book Why Only Us written by Robert C. Berwick and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.
Book Synopsis Origins of Language by : James R. Hurford
Download or read book Origins of Language written by James R. Hurford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an accessible overview of what is known about the evolution of the human capacity for language and what sets human language apart from the simple communication systems used by non-human animals. It draws on a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, neuroscience, genetics, and animal behaviour.
Book Synopsis The Origin and Diversification of Language by : Morris Swadesh
Download or read book The Origin and Diversification of Language written by Morris Swadesh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morris Swadesh, one of this century's foremost scientific investigators of language, dedicated much of his life to the study of the origin and evolution of language. This volume, left nearly completed at his death and edited posthumously by Joel F. Sherzer, is his last major study of this difficult subject.Swadesh discusses the simple qualities of human speech also present in animal language, and establishes distinctively human techniques of expression by comparing the common features that are found in modern and ancient languages. He treats the diversification of language not only by isolating root words in different languages, but also by dealing with sound systems, with forms of composition, and with sentence structure. In so doing, he demonstrates the evidence for the expansion of all language from a single central area. Swadesh supports his hypothesis by ""exhibits"" that conveniently present the evidence in tabular form. Further clarity is provided by the use of a suggestive practical phonetic system, intelligible to the student as well as to the professional.The book also contains an Appendix, in which the distinguished ethnographer of language, Dell Hymes, gives a valuable account of the prewar linguistic tradition within which Swadesh did some of his most important work.
Book Synopsis The Origin of Speech by : Peter F. MacNeilage
Download or read book The Origin of Speech written by Peter F. MacNeilage and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the origin and evolution of speech. The human speech system is in a league of its own in the animal kingdom and its possession dwarfs most other evolutionary achievements. During every second of speech we unconsciously use about 225 distinct muscle actions. To investigate the evolutionary origins of this prodigious ability, Peter MacNeilage draws on work in linguistics, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior. He puts forward a neo-Darwinian account of speech as a process of descent in which ancestral vocal capabilities became modified in response to natural selection pressures for more efficient communication. His proposals include the crucial observation that present-day infants learning to produce speech reveal constraints that were acting on our ancestors as they invented new words long ago. This important and original investigation integrates the latest research on modern speech capabilities, their acquisition, and their neurobiology, including the issues surrounding the cerebral hemispheric specialization for speech. Written in a clear style with minimal recourse to jargon the book will interest a wide range of readers in cognitive, neuro-, and evolutionary science, as well as all those seeking to understand the nature and evolution of speech and human communication.
Book Synopsis The Birth of Language by : Min K. Kim
Download or read book The Birth of Language written by Min K. Kim and published by North Pole Lighthouse. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Birth of Language tackles one of the most difficult topics known to mankind, the origin of language. Kim shares his experiences of learning English as a second language after moving to the United States as a teenager. He then discusses Noam Chomsky's theories on language. Through a groundbreaking idea, Kim gives readers a demonstration of a method for potentially unifying all human languages, giving substantial support to Chomsky's theory of universal grammar (UG). Written for the general public and young readers, The Birth of Language is a must-read for people looking for the next big intellectual discovery.
Book Synopsis The Origin of Language by : Eric Lawrence Gans
Download or read book The Origin of Language written by Eric Lawrence Gans and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1981-01-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention by : Daniel L. Everett
Download or read book How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention written by Daniel L. Everett and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Language Began revolutionizes our understanding of the one tool that has allowed us to become the "lords of the planet." Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” (Tom Wolfe, Harper’s), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than seven thousand languages that exist today. Although fossil hunters and linguists have brought us closer to unearthing the true origins of language, Daniel Everett’s discoveries have upended the contemporary linguistic world, reverberating far beyond academic circles. While conducting field research in the Amazonian rainforest, Everett came across an age-old language nestled amongst a tribe of hunter-gatherers. Challenging long-standing principles in the field, Everett now builds on the theory that language was not intrinsic to our species. In order to truly understand its origins, a more interdisciplinary approach is needed—one that accounts as much for our propensity for culture as it does our biological makeup. Language began, Everett theorizes, with Homo Erectus, who catalyzed words through culturally invented symbols. Early humans, as their brains grew larger, incorporated gestures and voice intonations to communicate, all of which built on each other for 60,000 generations. Tracing crucial shifts and developments across the ages, Everett breaks down every component of speech, from harnessing control of more than a hundred respiratory muscles in the larynx and diaphragm, to mastering the use of the tongue. Moving on from biology to execution, Everett explores why elements such as grammar and storytelling are not nearly as critical to language as one might suspect. In the book’s final section, Cultural Evolution of Language, Everett takes the ever-debated “language gap” to task, delving into the chasm that separates “us” from “the animals.” He approaches the subject from various disciplines, including anthropology, neuroscience, and archaeology, to reveal that it was social complexity, as well as cultural, physiological, and neurological superiority, that allowed humans—with our clawless hands, breakable bones, and soft skin—to become the apex predator. How Language Began ultimately explains what we know, what we’d like to know, and what we likely never will know about how humans went from mere communication to language. Based on nearly forty years of fieldwork, Everett debunks long-held theories by some of history’s greatest thinkers, from Plato to Chomsky. The result is an invaluable study of what makes us human.
Book Synopsis On the Origin of Languages by : Merritt Ruhlen
Download or read book On the Origin of Languages written by Merritt Ruhlen and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing that the prevailing conception of historical linguistics is flawed, the author presents a series of linguistic studies which demonstrate that all extant human languages share a common origin.
Book Synopsis The Social Origins of Language by : Robert M. Seyfarth
Download or read book The Social Origins of Language written by Robert M. Seyfarth and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How human language evolved from the need for social communication The origins of human language remain hotly debated. Despite growing appreciation of cognitive and neural continuity between humans and other animals, an evolutionary account of human language—in its modern form—remains as elusive as ever. The Social Origins of Language provides a novel perspective on this question and charts a new path toward its resolution. In the lead essay, Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney draw on their decades-long pioneering research on monkeys and baboons in the wild to show how primates use vocalizations to modulate social dynamics. They argue that key elements of human language emerged from the need to decipher and encode complex social interactions. In other words, social communication is the biological foundation upon which evolution built more complex language. Seyfarth and Cheney’s argument serves as a jumping-off point for responses by John McWhorter, Ljiljana Progovac, Jennifer E. Arnold, Benjamin Wilson, Christopher I. Petkov and Peter Godfrey-Smith, each of whom draw on their respective expertise in linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Michael Platt provides an introduction, Seyfarth and Cheney a concluding essay. Ultimately, The Social Origins of Language offers thought-provoking viewpoints on how human language evolved.
Book Synopsis Inquiries Into the Origin of Language by : James H. Stam
Download or read book Inquiries Into the Origin of Language written by James H. Stam and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1976 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Music and the Origins of Language by : Downing A. Thomas
Download or read book Music and the Origins of Language written by Downing A. Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-06-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses reflections on music and considers ways in which it facilitates links between language and meaning.
Book Synopsis Why We Talk by : Jean-Louis Dessalles
Download or read book Why We Talk written by Jean-Louis Dessalles and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-04 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constant exchange of information is integral to our societies. The author explores how this came into being. Presenting language evolution as a natural history of conversation, he sheds light on the emergence of communication in the hominine congregations, as well as on the human nature.
