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robrogan's review against another edition
5.0
I can see I read this book almost 7 years ago but I’m motivated to write a review now because it is STILL relevant (to me) and continues to be a common point of conversation :)
Also reading The Sixth Extinction right now and while topically different, I feel that it pairs well with this book. Highly recommend both!
Also reading The Sixth Extinction right now and while topically different, I feel that it pairs well with this book. Highly recommend both!
mgouker's review against another edition
3.0
A series of interesting essays in the linguistics field exploring the concept of language and why we seek to communicate.
tani's review against another edition
4.0
I'm currently taking a course in Linguistic Anthropology, and I ended up getting really interested in the evolution of language. I picked up this book hoping to learn more. So I knew some of the things that were mentioned in here, but a lot of it was completely new to me. I found it really interesting to read about all the studies that have been done in the area of language evolution. I thought this book worked really well as an introduction to the subject; it didn't assume that I was already an expert on the issue, and it presented everything in a fashion that was easy to understand. I really enjoyed reading it.
blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
HAL Has Always Been A False Friend
Remember the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? A hairy primate handles a thigh bone, presumably of a dead animal, and suddenly discovers it is a a tool, possibly a weapon. Cut to the inter-planetary research vehicle en route to a strange signal in the far reaches of the solar system. Thus, we are meant to understand, is the beginning of technological development, and eventually extra-terrestrial exploration. Obvious. A well thought out allegory for human progress, right?
Wrong. Seals and sea otters use rocks to open mollusks (so do some fish); chimpanzees use sticks to dig for termites; elephants manufacture fly-swatters from tree branches; dolphins make nose-protectors out of sponges. But none of these species have proliferated like Homo sapiens, much less indulged in space exploration. Kubrick’s allegory is flawed.
There is, though, an important technology which is fundamental to human development. But it isn’t the discovery of fire, or the usefulness of old bones, or the ability to live in social groups. Far more important is the technology that we take for granted and that has dominated us as completely as HAL, the computer, dominated Kubrick’s hapless astronauts: language.
Language is what enables us to be the dominant species on the planet. All the tools that we have used to subjugate the natural world and each other - spears, sailing ships, submarines and spaceships. These and almost everything else we consider part of normal human existence are embodied language. They all require not just plans, blueprints and instructions, but also a long history of thought and discussion (and therefore language) in their creation.
So it is the discovery of language not the usefulness of thigh bones that Kubrick should have used in his opening. But he couldn’t because the mystery of language is so profound that there really is no cinematic or any other way to represent its origins. Language ability depends on complex anatomical, neurological, and sociological interactions. Some researchers think the right conditions for language occurred as recently as 10,000 years ago; others suggest that it might be 100,000 years or more (still an eye-blink in evolutionary much less cosmic terms). The big linguistic bang of writing only occurred 6000 years ago. No one knows if the development was rapid, like the discovery by Kubrick’s primate, or incremental over hundreds, perhaps, thousands of generations.
Kenneally’s idea of ‘the first word’ is an attempt to remedy Kubrick’s misleading suggestion that technology is the engine of human progress. It isn’t. Language is the driver of our species-development. And our facility with language really hasn’t been going on long enough to justify the term ‘progress’ at all. Language, as Kubrick’s film implies, seems to have a life of its own. HAL is language which just happens to be in the form of a machine, a literal embodiment of the ‘no-thing’ that is language. It is revealed as a ‘thing’ controlling the astronauts only because it speaks to them and refuses to do what they ask. In everyday life we are unaware of HAL’s presence because language prefers to hide its existence, pretending that it is simply an obedient carrier of human intentions and an accurate expression of reality.
But language is neither obedient nor accurate. It is a kind of spirit which is nowhere and everywhere. It is in us, among us and beyond us simultaneously. As the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, quipped: “Language speaks Man.” That is, language is what we are as both a species and individuals. We don’t have an option to use it but are forced into it from the moment we are born. We are socialised in and through language; then educated in the intricacies and conventions of language; and eventually learn how to survive and make careers within some industrial, professional, or academic ‘bubble’ of language in which success is measured almost entirely by criteria established in and by language.
Of course language is useful. But we tend to confuse usefulness with reality. For example, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity as a force acting instantaneously at a distance has proven very useful in, among other things, space exploration. But gravity as Newton thought of it simply doesn’t exist. There is no such force. Scientists now speak of gravity as a distortion of space-time. And, who knows, when the secrets of quantum gravity are eventually uncovered, there may well be further explanations that debunk today’s version of reality.
This point is at the heart of Kenneally’s very accessible little book. The world of language is quite separate from the physical world in which it, and we, operate. And the connection between these two world is tenuous. Even the pragmatic criterion of ‘if it works, it must be true,’ is profoundly unreliable. This is demonstrated by the advance of science itself as theories once held as approximations of reality are discarded as fundamentally misguided. Not only is there no way to verify the connections between words and things, but there is also no way to know if such a verification has even taken place. Language resists any attempt to tie it down, to be tested and evaluated for its connection to what is not language.
So language - in the form of concepts, words, propositions, arguments, theories - pretends to be reality. And we tend to go along with the deception because we really have no alternative. We can’t function without it. As Kenneally points out, “The creation of the net was an awesome leap in technological evolution. Yet for all that it offers, it is the merest shadow of something much larger and much older. Language is the real information highway, the first virtual world. Language is the worldwide web, and everyone is logged on.” And, one must add, we have been trapped in that web from the very first word uttered, perhaps, in a sort of shriek of triumph similar to Kubrick’s primate with his thigh bone.
I suggest that it is somewhat premature, even now, to recognise that ancient shriek as one of human triumph. It could well be one of cosmic despair.
Remember the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? A hairy primate handles a thigh bone, presumably of a dead animal, and suddenly discovers it is a a tool, possibly a weapon. Cut to the inter-planetary research vehicle en route to a strange signal in the far reaches of the solar system. Thus, we are meant to understand, is the beginning of technological development, and eventually extra-terrestrial exploration. Obvious. A well thought out allegory for human progress, right?
Wrong. Seals and sea otters use rocks to open mollusks (so do some fish); chimpanzees use sticks to dig for termites; elephants manufacture fly-swatters from tree branches; dolphins make nose-protectors out of sponges. But none of these species have proliferated like Homo sapiens, much less indulged in space exploration. Kubrick’s allegory is flawed.
There is, though, an important technology which is fundamental to human development. But it isn’t the discovery of fire, or the usefulness of old bones, or the ability to live in social groups. Far more important is the technology that we take for granted and that has dominated us as completely as HAL, the computer, dominated Kubrick’s hapless astronauts: language.
Language is what enables us to be the dominant species on the planet. All the tools that we have used to subjugate the natural world and each other - spears, sailing ships, submarines and spaceships. These and almost everything else we consider part of normal human existence are embodied language. They all require not just plans, blueprints and instructions, but also a long history of thought and discussion (and therefore language) in their creation.
So it is the discovery of language not the usefulness of thigh bones that Kubrick should have used in his opening. But he couldn’t because the mystery of language is so profound that there really is no cinematic or any other way to represent its origins. Language ability depends on complex anatomical, neurological, and sociological interactions. Some researchers think the right conditions for language occurred as recently as 10,000 years ago; others suggest that it might be 100,000 years or more (still an eye-blink in evolutionary much less cosmic terms). The big linguistic bang of writing only occurred 6000 years ago. No one knows if the development was rapid, like the discovery by Kubrick’s primate, or incremental over hundreds, perhaps, thousands of generations.
Kenneally’s idea of ‘the first word’ is an attempt to remedy Kubrick’s misleading suggestion that technology is the engine of human progress. It isn’t. Language is the driver of our species-development. And our facility with language really hasn’t been going on long enough to justify the term ‘progress’ at all. Language, as Kubrick’s film implies, seems to have a life of its own. HAL is language which just happens to be in the form of a machine, a literal embodiment of the ‘no-thing’ that is language. It is revealed as a ‘thing’ controlling the astronauts only because it speaks to them and refuses to do what they ask. In everyday life we are unaware of HAL’s presence because language prefers to hide its existence, pretending that it is simply an obedient carrier of human intentions and an accurate expression of reality.
But language is neither obedient nor accurate. It is a kind of spirit which is nowhere and everywhere. It is in us, among us and beyond us simultaneously. As the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, quipped: “Language speaks Man.” That is, language is what we are as both a species and individuals. We don’t have an option to use it but are forced into it from the moment we are born. We are socialised in and through language; then educated in the intricacies and conventions of language; and eventually learn how to survive and make careers within some industrial, professional, or academic ‘bubble’ of language in which success is measured almost entirely by criteria established in and by language.
Of course language is useful. But we tend to confuse usefulness with reality. For example, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity as a force acting instantaneously at a distance has proven very useful in, among other things, space exploration. But gravity as Newton thought of it simply doesn’t exist. There is no such force. Scientists now speak of gravity as a distortion of space-time. And, who knows, when the secrets of quantum gravity are eventually uncovered, there may well be further explanations that debunk today’s version of reality.
This point is at the heart of Kenneally’s very accessible little book. The world of language is quite separate from the physical world in which it, and we, operate. And the connection between these two world is tenuous. Even the pragmatic criterion of ‘if it works, it must be true,’ is profoundly unreliable. This is demonstrated by the advance of science itself as theories once held as approximations of reality are discarded as fundamentally misguided. Not only is there no way to verify the connections between words and things, but there is also no way to know if such a verification has even taken place. Language resists any attempt to tie it down, to be tested and evaluated for its connection to what is not language.
So language - in the form of concepts, words, propositions, arguments, theories - pretends to be reality. And we tend to go along with the deception because we really have no alternative. We can’t function without it. As Kenneally points out, “The creation of the net was an awesome leap in technological evolution. Yet for all that it offers, it is the merest shadow of something much larger and much older. Language is the real information highway, the first virtual world. Language is the worldwide web, and everyone is logged on.” And, one must add, we have been trapped in that web from the very first word uttered, perhaps, in a sort of shriek of triumph similar to Kubrick’s primate with his thigh bone.
I suggest that it is somewhat premature, even now, to recognise that ancient shriek as one of human triumph. It could well be one of cosmic despair.
kiramke's review against another edition
4.0
Kenneally does an admirable job laying out the foundations of evolutionary linguistics and summarizing current research. It's pleasing to read someone with a background both in linguistics and in journalism, especially when exploring current debate.
I got my copy from a non-linguist. We both enjoyed it enough that I don't think jargon or oversimplification are problems, although an academic background probably helps. I actually think the layout and transitions are reasonably well done, especially while covering such a broad range of research. The chapter headings and the three (!) introductions led me to believe it would be far less organized as a narrative. The entire book could use one more go through editing, however. Personally I'd prefer to see more academic sections, and more concise introductions and summaries.
While I have minor concerns with framing, elaboration, organization, overall I appreciate the work. It's too bad that missing last edit will keep it from reaching a wider audience. I'm most fascinated by the range of reviews either condemning this book for being anti-Chomsky (please, PLEASE can we let go of this binary) or pro-evolution (it's a science book, so...). I guess I'm glad to see people engaging with the topic, however that gets expressed.
I got my copy from a non-linguist. We both enjoyed it enough that I don't think jargon or oversimplification are problems, although an academic background probably helps. I actually think the layout and transitions are reasonably well done, especially while covering such a broad range of research. The chapter headings and the three (!) introductions led me to believe it would be far less organized as a narrative. The entire book could use one more go through editing, however. Personally I'd prefer to see more academic sections, and more concise introductions and summaries.
While I have minor concerns with framing, elaboration, organization, overall I appreciate the work. It's too bad that missing last edit will keep it from reaching a wider audience. I'm most fascinated by the range of reviews either condemning this book for being anti-Chomsky (please, PLEASE can we let go of this binary) or pro-evolution (it's a science book, so...). I guess I'm glad to see people engaging with the topic, however that gets expressed.
heatherinthenether's review against another edition
4.0
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.
dmsleeve's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book and found the topic generally interesting. The main problem I had was that it was very detailed and at times was a little more involved that what I wanted. I have a general interest in linguistics and took a couple courses in college and would have preferred a more summary-type book on this same topic. Still this is an interesting and well written book. Just not exactly what I was looking for. I found it worthwhile even though I skimmed through parts of it.
blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
HAL Has Always Been A False Friend
Remember the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? A hairy primate handles a thigh bone, presumably of a dead animal, and suddenly discovers it is a a tool, possibly a weapon. Cut to the inter-planetary research vehicle en route to a strange signal in the far reaches of the solar system. Thus, we are meant to understand, is the beginning of technological development, and eventually extra-terrestrial exploration. Obvious. A well thought out allegory for human progress, right?
Wrong. Seals and sea otters use rocks to open mollusks (so do some fish); chimpanzees use sticks to dig for termites; elephants manufacture fly-swatters from tree branches; dolphins make nose-protectors out of sponges. But none of these species have proliferated like Homo sapiens, much less indulged in space exploration. Kubrick’s allegory is flawed.
There is, though, an important technology which is fundamental to human development. But it isn’t the discovery of fire, or the usefulness of old bones, or the ability to live in social groups. Far more important is the technology that we take for granted and that has dominated us as completely as HAL, the computer, dominated Kubrick’s hapless astronauts: language.
Language is what enables us to be the dominant species on the planet. All the tools that we have used to subjugate the natural world and each other - spears, sailing ships, submarines and spaceships. These and almost everything else we consider part of normal human existence are embodied language. They all require not just plans, blueprints and instructions, but also a long history of thought and discussion (and therefore language) in their creation.
So it is the discovery of language not the usefulness of thigh bones that Kubrick should have used in his opening. But he couldn’t because the mystery of language is so profound that there really is no cinematic or any other way to represent its origins. Language ability depends on complex anatomical, neurological, and sociological interactions. Some researchers think the right conditions for language occurred as recently as 10,000 years ago; others suggest that it might be 100,000 years or more (still an eye-blink in evolutionary much less cosmic terms). The big linguistic bang of writing only occurred 6000 years ago. No one knows if the development was rapid, like the discovery by Kubrick’s primate, or incremental over hundreds, perhaps, thousands of generations.
Kenneally’s idea of ‘the first word’ is an attempt to remedy Kubrick’s misleading suggestion that technology is the engine of human progress. It isn’t. Language is the driver of our species-development. And our facility with language really hasn’t been going on long enough to justify the term ‘progress’ at all. Language, as Kubrick’s film implies, seems to have a life of its own. HAL is language which just happens to be in the form of a machine, a literal embodiment of the ‘no-thing’ that is language. It is revealed as a ‘thing’ controlling the astronauts only because it speaks to them and refuses to do what they ask. In everyday life we are unaware of HAL’s presence because language prefers to hide its existence, pretending that it is simply an obedient carrier of human intentions and an accurate expression of reality.
But language is neither obedient nor accurate. It is a kind of spirit which is nowhere and everywhere. It is in us, among us and beyond us simultaneously. As the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, quipped: “Language speaks Man.” That is, language is what we are as both a species and individuals. We don’t have an option to use it but are forced into it from the moment we are born. We are socialised in and through language; then educated in the intricacies and conventions of language; and eventually learn how to survive and make careers within some industrial, professional, or academic ‘bubble’ of language in which success is measured almost entirely by criteria established in and by language.
Of course language is useful. But we tend to confuse usefulness with reality. For example, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity as a force acting instantaneously at a distance has proven very useful in, among other things, space exploration. But gravity as Newton thought of it simply doesn’t exist. There is no such force. Scientists now speak of gravity as a distortion of space-time. And, who knows, when the secrets of quantum gravity are eventually uncovered, there may well be further explanations that debunk today’s version of reality.
This point is at the heart of Kenneally’s very accessible little book. The world of language is quite separate from the physical world in which it, and we, operate. And the connection between these two world is tenuous. Even the pragmatic criterion of ‘if it works, it must be true,’ is profoundly unreliable. This is demonstrated by the advance of science itself as theories once held as approximations of reality are discarded as fundamentally misguided. Not only is there no way to verify the connections between words and things, but there is also no way to know if such a verification has even taken place. Language resists any attempt to tie it down, to be tested and evaluated for its connection to what is not language.
So language - in the form of concepts, words, propositions, arguments, theories - pretends to be reality. And we tend to go along with the deception because we really have no alternative. We can’t function without it. As Kenneally points out, “The creation of the net was an awesome leap in technological evolution. Yet for all that it offers, it is the merest shadow of something much larger and much older. Language is the real information highway, the first virtual world. Language is the worldwide web, and everyone is logged on.” And, one must add, we have been trapped in that web from the very first word uttered, perhaps, in a sort of shriek of triumph similar to Kubrick’s primate with his thigh bone.
I suggest that it is somewhat premature, even now, to recognise that ancient shriek as one of human triumph. It could well be one of cosmic despair.
Remember the opening scene of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? A hairy primate handles a thigh bone, presumably of a dead animal, and suddenly discovers it is a a tool, possibly a weapon. Cut to the inter-planetary research vehicle en route to a strange signal in the far reaches of the solar system. Thus, we are meant to understand, is the beginning of technological development, and eventually extra-terrestrial exploration. Obvious. A well thought out allegory for human progress, right?
Wrong. Seals and sea otters use rocks to open mollusks (so do some fish); chimpanzees use sticks to dig for termites; elephants manufacture fly-swatters from tree branches; dolphins make nose-protectors out of sponges. But none of these species have proliferated like Homo sapiens, much less indulged in space exploration. Kubrick’s allegory is flawed.
There is, though, an important technology which is fundamental to human development. But it isn’t the discovery of fire, or the usefulness of old bones, or the ability to live in social groups. Far more important is the technology that we take for granted and that has dominated us as completely as HAL, the computer, dominated Kubrick’s hapless astronauts: language.
Language is what enables us to be the dominant species on the planet. All the tools that we have used to subjugate the natural world and each other - spears, sailing ships, submarines and spaceships. These and almost everything else we consider part of normal human existence are embodied language. They all require not just plans, blueprints and instructions, but also a long history of thought and discussion (and therefore language) in their creation.
So it is the discovery of language not the usefulness of thigh bones that Kubrick should have used in his opening. But he couldn’t because the mystery of language is so profound that there really is no cinematic or any other way to represent its origins. Language ability depends on complex anatomical, neurological, and sociological interactions. Some researchers think the right conditions for language occurred as recently as 10,000 years ago; others suggest that it might be 100,000 years or more (still an eye-blink in evolutionary much less cosmic terms). The big linguistic bang of writing only occurred 6000 years ago. No one knows if the development was rapid, like the discovery by Kubrick’s primate, or incremental over hundreds, perhaps, thousands of generations.
Kenneally’s idea of ‘the first word’ is an attempt to remedy Kubrick’s misleading suggestion that technology is the engine of human progress. It isn’t. Language is the driver of our species-development. And our facility with language really hasn’t been going on long enough to justify the term ‘progress’ at all. Language, as Kubrick’s film implies, seems to have a life of its own. HAL is language which just happens to be in the form of a machine, a literal embodiment of the ‘no-thing’ that is language. It is revealed as a ‘thing’ controlling the astronauts only because it speaks to them and refuses to do what they ask. In everyday life we are unaware of HAL’s presence because language prefers to hide its existence, pretending that it is simply an obedient carrier of human intentions and an accurate expression of reality.
But language is neither obedient nor accurate. It is a kind of spirit which is nowhere and everywhere. It is in us, among us and beyond us simultaneously. As the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, quipped: “Language speaks Man.” That is, language is what we are as both a species and individuals. We don’t have an option to use it but are forced into it from the moment we are born. We are socialised in and through language; then educated in the intricacies and conventions of language; and eventually learn how to survive and make careers within some industrial, professional, or academic ‘bubble’ of language in which success is measured almost entirely by criteria established in and by language.
Of course language is useful. But we tend to confuse usefulness with reality. For example, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity as a force acting instantaneously at a distance has proven very useful in, among other things, space exploration. But gravity as Newton thought of it simply doesn’t exist. There is no such force. Scientists now speak of gravity as a distortion of space-time. And, who knows, when the secrets of quantum gravity are eventually uncovered, there may well be further explanations that debunk today’s version of reality.
This point is at the heart of Kenneally’s very accessible little book. The world of language is quite separate from the physical world in which it, and we, operate. And the connection between these two world is tenuous. Even the pragmatic criterion of ‘if it works, it must be true,’ is profoundly unreliable. This is demonstrated by the advance of science itself as theories once held as approximations of reality are discarded as fundamentally misguided. Not only is there no way to verify the connections between words and things, but there is also no way to know if such a verification has even taken place. Language resists any attempt to tie it down, to be tested and evaluated for its connection to what is not language.
So language - in the form of concepts, words, propositions, arguments, theories - pretends to be reality. And we tend to go along with the deception because we really have no alternative. We can’t function without it. As Kenneally points out, “The creation of the net was an awesome leap in technological evolution. Yet for all that it offers, it is the merest shadow of something much larger and much older. Language is the real information highway, the first virtual world. Language is the worldwide web, and everyone is logged on.” And, one must add, we have been trapped in that web from the very first word uttered, perhaps, in a sort of shriek of triumph similar to Kubrick’s primate with his thigh bone.
I suggest that it is somewhat premature, even now, to recognise that ancient shriek as one of human triumph. It could well be one of cosmic despair.
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