How Language Began
A sweeping history of humanity’s greatest invention, arguing that language is not an instinct we are born with but an achievement built over 60,000 generations.
About the book
This book was written to show how human language evolved. The main theses are that (i) Homo erectus invented human language nearly two million years ago, and (ii) that the key to understanding the evolution of language is the development of open-ended symbol creation. All species use signs to communicate. And non-human species do have symbols. But only humans have open-ended symbols, that is, only humans can create symbols at will. The general reader interested in prehistoric humans and the nature of language and how it began will enjoy this book.
Praise
“Very few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe that Daniel Everett’s How Language Began will be one of them.”
E. O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
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About Daniel Everett
I came to linguistics serendipitously. Growing up in Holtville, California, near the Mexican border, I heard Spanish all around me, though I expected to become a musician rather than a scientist. On a school-band trip to Hollywood, I saw My Fair Lady and became fascinated by Henry Higgins. The film’s linguistic consultant, Peter Ladefoged, later became my friend and co-author.
A few years later, I moved to Brazil with SIL International, with which I am no longer affiliated, and earned my doctorate in linguistics at the University of Campinas. Beginning in 1977, I spent many years living and conducting field research among Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
Linguist, anthropologist and author. Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences, Bentley University.