How Language Began. The History of the Greatest Invention

"How Language Began" offers the reader an original, detailed history of language as a human invention - from the emergence of our species to the appearance of more than 7,000 modern languages. The author challenges Noam Chomsky's popular theory of an innate language instinct among our species. According to Everett, historically, speech developed gradually through communication. The book discusses language from an interdisciplinary perspective, paying close attention to the interaction between language and culture on one hand, and the features of the brain that allowed humans to speak on the other. Although fossil hunters and linguists have brought us closer to understanding how language arose, Everett's discoveries have shaken the modern linguistic world, resonating far beyond academic circles. Conducting field research in the Amazonian rainforests, he stumbled upon an ancient language of a tribe of hunter-gatherers. Challenging traditional theories of the origin of language, Everett concluded that language was not a hallmark of our species. To understand this, a broad interdisciplinary approach is needed, considering both cultural context and the nuances of our biology. This book tells what we know, what we hope to learn, and what we may never know about how humans evolved from simple communication to language.