“Margaret Mead among the Samoans… Franz Boas among the Inuits… Bronislaw Malinowski among the Trobriand Islanders… Claude Lévi-Strauss among the Bororos and Guaycurus… Ruth Benedict among the Zunis, Dobus, and Kwakiutls – but to my mind Daniel Everett has now outdone them all. Language: The Cultural Tool, coming upon the heels of Don’t Sleep,There Are Snakes, establishes his thirty years with the Pirahã deep in the Amazon as the most important – and provocative – anthropological field work ever undertaken.” Tom Wolfe, author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities
“Controversial, driven by data from across the sciences, and leavened with
wit — Language: The Cultural Tool is the book on language I have been waiting and
waiting for. A masterpiece, and then some.” Patricia S. Churchland, Professor emerita of Philosophy, Uinversity of California, San Diego
“For the past half century, linguistic theory has been dominated by the idea that language is a biologically determined instinct. Daniel Everett argues instead that language is a cultural tool, no different in principle from the physical tools that people have invented in adapting to different physical and cultural environments. The sheer diversity of the world’s 7,000 or so languages strongly challenges any notion of a universal grammar, and suggests instead that languages are the product of general human intelligence, adaptability, and creativity. Everett draws on a wide knowledge of diverse languages and cultures, a deep knowledge of the history of ideas, and above all on his experiences in living among the remote Pirahã people in the Amazon. This is the most recent and most eloquent account of a remarkable sea change that is taking place in our understanding of the nature of human language.” Michael Corballis, author of The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization, and Professor emeritus of Psychology at the University of Auckland
“This is exciting work. I learned a tremendous amount from it, as will anyone who is concerned with the nature of language and of mind.”, Robert Brandom, University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
“Daniel Everett’s book is a must-read for anyone having an interest in knowing what makes us human. In clear language, using data from real-life situations he masterfully shows that, ‘language is a product and a producer of culture.’ Language is the agent by which we transmit and advance the attainments that distinguish us from all other living species. The past half-century has seen a futile search for non-existent language ‘organs,’ ‘language genes’ and ‘bioprograms’ that mysteriously allow children to ‘acquire’ language. Everett resets the research agenda for linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience towards finding out how our biological endowment and culture interact, to form and shape the rich diversity apparent as we view the human condition.” Philip Lieberman, Fred M. Seed Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences and Professor of Anthropology, Brown University
“Thoughtfully reflecting on the communicative ecologies of the Amazonian peoples among whom he has lived and worked, in Language: the Cultural Tool Dan Everett mounts an impassioned argument that language has adaptively emerged as our species’ “tool” for achieving social collectivity via discourse. He sharply questions today’s doctrinal wisdom in the field of linguistics by giving it a pendulum-push back in the direction of anthropology, of Humboldtian cosmography, and of humanity’s evolved socio-cognitive diversity.” Michael Silverstein, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, of Linguistics, and of Psychology, University of Chicago
“In Language: The Cultural Tool Dan Everett presents a compelling argument that language cannot be fully understood in purely psychological terms as an instinct, but must also be understood in terms of its role in human culture. Combining decades of field research on indigenous languages of the Americas with experience in theoretical linguistics at the highest level, Everett offers a provocative perspective on the questions of the nature of language, of how language evolved, and of how languages are structured. It is a significant contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding these issues.” Robert Van Valin, Professor of Linguistics, The University of Buffalo and Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf.
“Language: The Cultural Tool represents a radical reassessment of the origin and evolution of language: it is a tool that we human animals create and shape according to our needs and through our culture. The book eloquently reminds us that the incredible diversity of languages on this planet reflect different ways of thinking and being in the world—a phenomenon that might sadly be on the verge of extinction.” Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, Art of Seduction, 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law and The Descent of Power