Nontechnical overview emphasizing debates between scientists.

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	• The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language Christine Kenneally Viking Adult, 2007 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nontechnical overview emphasizing debates between scientists.

This book is as much about scientific debate as it is about the study of the origins of language. Noam Chomsky is a big player in her story. You learn a lot about how scientists gradually overcame their reluctance to study a topic that had once been deemed to be outside the scope of science. I would have liked to learn a bit more technical detail; in some sections it seemed as if the author thought readers might not want to take the effort to understand difficult concepts.

Very Informative and Approachable

I thought this was a very fair and balanced approach to the biological and social history behind the development of human language. Though it does not draw any particular conclusions, it presents the reader with several well researched expert opinions on the subject and makes heavy use of science as backup. I am sure it wasn't the absolute authority on the subject of evolutionary linguistics, and there may well be some issues with the book, but I thought it was a great and approachable read for those of us with no background in the actual science of linguistics.

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Serendipitous reading

I expected to learn about various theories on the origins of language, but the book does not contain much on this subject. Instead, it introduces the environment in which such theories may flourish, and it does it very well : the author has a great talent for writing about science and scientists, and this suffices to make the book an interesting reading.
As for the origins od language, I'll have to continue to rely on "The Singing Neanderthals" by Steven Mithen, and chapter 8 of Jackendoff's "Foundations of language".

The Search is the Thing

The key word in the title of this book is "search." No one knows much about the evolution of the capacity for language in humans, and even the current state of the capacity is the subject of fundamental debate. Kenneally is best at describing the history and sociology of the conflicting parties to the debate. In the process, the reader will learn a good deal about the structure of the human brain, the nature of adaptation in evolutionary theory, the physiology of sound production, the relationship between communication in animals and humans, and several other basic facets of human biology and behavior. This is a great book for someone who has not studied these issues in the past decade or two.

The reader will also learn that we don't know much about the issue, and the intense parti pris attitudes of the researchers in this area are an inverse reflection of their level of firm knowledge.

Kenneally has a knack for making really hard issues (such as generative grammar) seem really easy to understand, and for making clear the basic contrasting positions in the evolutionary theory of language. The book is a pleasure to read. On the other hand, these issues are in fact quite difficult, and some of the beauty in the study of language comes from intrinsically difficult theoretical issues in linguistic theory and game theory. Indeed, game theory, which supplies the basics of signaling theory, supplies basic insights that are missing from this book. Also missing are accounts from behavioral ecology and bio-anthropology on the relationship between social organization and brain size, a subject which I consider a basic background for the study of the evolution of language. Finally, humans are special in that we cooperate in large groups of unrelated individuals, a subject with a voluminous literature that Kenneally ignores. Yet, language is first and foremost a prerequisite and central element in the capacity of humans to cooperate. The notion that one could model the evolution of language while abstracting from these issues in not plausible. However, the book is a great read, and would have to be four times as long to fulfill my wish list, so I recommend it as a nice place to start.

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difficult read; don't try to read on vacation (as I did)

this was a tough read; I had to force myself to pick it up each time; tough read while on vacation (and I'm a neurologist interested in language...)

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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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