Product Description

In this mind-opening book, Robbins Burling presents the most convincing - and the most readable - account of the origins of language yet published. He sheds new light on how language affects the way we think, behave, and relate to each other, and he gives us a deeper understanding of the nature of language itself. The author traces language back to its earliest origins among our distant ape-like forbears several million years ago. He offers a new account of the route by which we acquired our defining characteristic and explores the changing nature of language as it developed through the course of our evolution. He considers what the earliest forms of communication are likely to have been, how they worked, and why they were deployed. He examines the qualities of mind and brain needed to support the operations of language and the advantages they offered for survival and reproduction. He investigates the beginnings and prehistories of vocabulary and grammar; and connects work in fields extending from linguistics, sign languages, and psychology to palaeontology, evolutionary biology, and archaeology. And he does all this in a style that is crystal-clear, constantly enlivened by wit and humour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64156 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 298 pages

About the Author
Robbins Burling is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Michigan. He has long been interested in language, human evolution, and comprehension in communication. He has done extensive anthropological and linguistic field research in Bangladesh and northeastern India, and written widely in both subjects. His books include Hill Farms and Padi Fields: Life in Mainland Southeast Asia, The Passage of Power: Studies in Political Succession, Man's Many
Voices: Language in its Cultural Context, Sounding Right: Comprehension Based Language Instruction, Patterms of Language: Structure, Variation, Change and The Strong Women of Modhupur.

Customer Reviews

Highly Plausible Reconstruction Effort
Burling's relatively short volume is very readable, non-technical attempt to mark a path looking at real world forces in connection with the evolution of speech. Centrally, and without bold claims, he stresses the importance of cognitive evolution proceeding physiological evolution: shared meaning, and the understanding of intention must proceed more sophisticated communication practices.

He repudiates the position of those who believe in the necessity of rapid phological evolution: again, as so often demonstrated in evolutionary studies, a rudimentary, or more basic form of an "organ" often serves a demonstrably useful role. Burling paints a highly plausible picture of progressive, incrementally more sophisticated stages of vocal communication appearing amongst our ancestors.

He also rejects Klein's concept of the cognitive "big-bang" taking place around 50,000 years ago: evidence now strongly supports an earlier still impressive degree of cultural sophistication.

This volume is a very important addition to the literature on this topic, and I think one of the most careful and convincing in its approach. Anyone interested in the field will be virtually compelled to read it because of Burling has grasped the nettle and laid out a fairly detailed trajectory for the evolution of this most human of skills, but besides the compulsion on the grounds of keeping abreast with the field, this book is a pleasant and relaxed exposition.

Certainly a more detailed level of mechanistic explanation is warranted than what he has provided here, but he's shone a light onto "a" path of evolution: its now down to others to challenge his model or assist with substantiating it.