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Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans
How language evolved has been called “the hardest problem in science.” In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the conventional wisdom.
Language is unique to humans, but it isn’t the only thing that sets us apart from other species—our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units—words—automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft.
Written in Bickerton’s lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence.
Language is unique to humans, but it isn’t the only thing that sets us apart from other species—our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units—words—automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft.
Written in Bickerton’s lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence.
286 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
38 people are currently reading
959 people want to read
About the author
Derek Bickerton
31 books31 followersDerek Bickerton was a linguist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Based on his work in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii, he proposed that the features of creole languages provide powerful insights into the development of language both by individuals and as a feature of the human species. He was the originator and main proponent of the language bioprogram hypothesis according to which the similarity of creoles is due to their being formed from a prior pidgin by children who all share a universal human innate grammar capacity.
Bickerton also wrote several novels. He was the father of contemporary artist Ashley Bickerton.
Bickerton also wrote several novels. He was the father of contemporary artist Ashley Bickerton.
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May 26, 2019
خب، آقای بکرتون عزیز،
لحظه‌های بسیار قشنگ و عمیقی رو با کتاب شما گذروندم، شاید به اندازه‌ی مطالعه چندین ماه و چندین کتاب، از همین کتاب شما چیز یاد گرفتم، با صدها نظریه و دیدگاه و دانشمند و کتاب و مقاله و مجله و سایت علمی آشنا شدم، و از نگاه صرفا علمی و وسیع و کنجکاوتون، و لحن تحلیلی، غیرمغرضانه، دور از تعصب و سیاست، و اینجا و آنجا طنزآلودتون لذت بردم و گاها براتون کف زدم و هورا کشیدم. حالا شما در صدر لیست زبان‌شناسان محبوب من و حتا قبل از چامسکی و سوسور قرار دارین. آشنا شدن به این زودی با شما و با این کتاب یه تصادف و در نتیجه خوش‌شانسی محض بود.
کتابتون از امروز روی میز من جایگاهی شاید نه همیشگی اما بی شک طولانی خواهد داشت و بارها و بارها دوباره بهش برخواهم گشت.
و چه ترجمه‌ی روان و قشنگی هم داشت. ذره‌ای نه اذیت کرد و نه حرصم داد.
مدتها بود کتاب علمی به این لذیذی نخونده بودم. واقعا از تموم شدنش دلم گرفت و با حسرت بستمش.
P.S. Audio interview on this book:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...
لحظه‌های بسیار قشنگ و عمیقی رو با کتاب شما گذروندم، شاید به اندازه‌ی مطالعه چندین ماه و چندین کتاب، از همین کتاب شما چیز یاد گرفتم، با صدها نظریه و دیدگاه و دانشمند و کتاب و مقاله و مجله و سایت علمی آشنا شدم، و از نگاه صرفا علمی و وسیع و کنجکاوتون، و لحن تحلیلی، غیرمغرضانه، دور از تعصب و سیاست، و اینجا و آنجا طنزآلودتون لذت بردم و گاها براتون کف زدم و هورا کشیدم. حالا شما در صدر لیست زبان‌شناسان محبوب من و حتا قبل از چامسکی و سوسور قرار دارین. آشنا شدن به این زودی با شما و با این کتاب یه تصادف و در نتیجه خوش‌شانسی محض بود.
کتابتون از امروز روی میز من جایگاهی شاید نه همیشگی اما بی شک طولانی خواهد داشت و بارها و بارها دوباره بهش برخواهم گشت.
و چه ترجمه‌ی روان و قشنگی هم داشت. ذره‌ای نه اذیت کرد و نه حرصم داد.
مدتها بود کتاب علمی به این لذیذی نخونده بودم. واقعا از تموم شدنش دلم گرفت و با حسرت بستمش.
P.S. Audio interview on this book:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...
April 10, 2022
ترجیح بند کتاب دِرک بیکرتون:تکامل این طور کار می کند.هر گونه ،کاری را می کند که مجبور است بکند.به حدی از خواندن کتاب سراسر اعجاب جناب بیکرتون مشعوف شدم که اگر اینجا بودند،شخصا بر گردنش اویزان شده بدون ترس از کرونا،می بوسیدمش و توی گوشش زمزمه میکردم؛بخاطر نوع نگرش خالی از سوگیری ات،از صمیم قلبم ازت سپاس گزارم.بیکرتون در این کتاب برایتان یک دنیا سوال طرح می کند.نظریه چامسکی کبیر را با توجه به دلائل طرح شده خود چامسکی میرُوبد و اتفاقا صادقانه ،خیلی جاها می گوید این سوالی که خودم طرح کردم خودم پاسخ اش را نمیدانم،!!!!تواضع ،واقع بینی و میل افسار گیسخته به کشف در سطر سطر کتاب موج میزند. در هیج جایی میل و تلاش برای به کرسی نشاندن نظریه خودش ندیدم. هرگز در صدد قانع کردن من مخاطب نبود فقط میتوانست مرا دعوت کند از دریچه دیگری نگاه کنم و اتفاقا مشتاق ایجاد سوال در ذهن من بوده تا اثبات نظریه خودش!!این کتاب از فشار انتخابی حرف میزند که ما و میمون ریخت های بزرگ را متمایز می کند،چگونه ،و چرا،گونه ما شروع به حرف زدن کرد؟،و چرا در هیچ گونه دیگری چیزی حتی شبیه به زبان وجود ندارد؟...صفحه پایانی کتاب نگرانی بیکرتون است از تلاش انسان امروزی در تغییر بوم نقش اش .نقطه ای که ما را هر لحظه از انسان بودن مان ،دور می کند. خلاصه جناب بیکرتون کاری کردی که رسما عاشق ات شدم،رفت و تمام😁 ...❤❤
April 15, 2015
This book was a big disappointment for me. I've had my eyes on it for a long time, and I finally decided to order a cheap copy of it (an old library copy) and read it. It covers about everything that I think is interesting about language and evolution: comparisons between music and language, studies on human language and animal communication systems, the presence or absence of recursion in human and animal thought, and other topics related to theories about why language emerged.
Bickerton does a good job in presenting the newest research in the field. What this book lacks, however, is a clear and concise evaluation of this new research. Bickerton is not short of opinions, but he spreads them all over the place, almost always with annoying attempts to be both funny and authoritative. Yes, Bickerton has tons of experience in a particular field in linguistics (pidgin and creole), but here he makes extravagant claims about topics and issues that he clearly doesn't know enough about. First, he has got a very dualistic view of how brains and minds work, talking about them only as information processors, thus sweeping the question about free will completely under the carpet. Second, what Bickerton believes to be a flash of deep insight about why he believes that Chomsky killed recursion when introducing merge is nothing but a poorly argued, one-page confusion, as far as I can see.
Bickerton has a lot on his mind, and there are chapters of value in this book. Unfortunately, he has a way of explaining things with far too many words and with too few actual examples. I suppose he's trying to make the book more accessible, but he's taking popular science writing to its extreme, and ends up with a book that, at its worst moments, is almost unreadable. The final words of the last chapter is way outside Bickerton's expertise, and close to laughable (similar to when Dawkins takes the role of the anthropologist in The God Delusion). Sad, because this book should have been so much better.
Bickerton does a good job in presenting the newest research in the field. What this book lacks, however, is a clear and concise evaluation of this new research. Bickerton is not short of opinions, but he spreads them all over the place, almost always with annoying attempts to be both funny and authoritative. Yes, Bickerton has tons of experience in a particular field in linguistics (pidgin and creole), but here he makes extravagant claims about topics and issues that he clearly doesn't know enough about. First, he has got a very dualistic view of how brains and minds work, talking about them only as information processors, thus sweeping the question about free will completely under the carpet. Second, what Bickerton believes to be a flash of deep insight about why he believes that Chomsky killed recursion when introducing merge is nothing but a poorly argued, one-page confusion, as far as I can see.
Bickerton has a lot on his mind, and there are chapters of value in this book. Unfortunately, he has a way of explaining things with far too many words and with too few actual examples. I suppose he's trying to make the book more accessible, but he's taking popular science writing to its extreme, and ends up with a book that, at its worst moments, is almost unreadable. The final words of the last chapter is way outside Bickerton's expertise, and close to laughable (similar to when Dawkins takes the role of the anthropologist in The God Delusion). Sad, because this book should have been so much better.
October 19, 2010
This is a fascinating book written by one of the most amusing and irreverent linguists out there, Derek Bickerton. In an approachable, conversational style, Bickerton gives his argument for how language evolved alongside the human species, and in fact played a major role in triggering the transition from pre-human ancestors like Homo habilis and Homo erectus to modern Homo sapiens sapiens.
His explanatory tool is niche construction, the idea that organisms shape and are shaped by their environment. Bickerton argues that language (and all the incremental steps along the way that separated it from animal communication systems) was a particular set of skills and "tricks" that allowed early hominids to thrive in their niche, which the evidence indicates was one of "power scavenging." This form of scavening involves using tools to get at the carcasses of large herbivores before other scavengers can get to them, thus giving the pre-humans a competitive advantage in the food chain. Language, Bickertain maintains, developed in response to the pressure to recruit others to help in the power scavenging effort, which would have been too dangerous and complex for one individual to handle on their own. In so doing, humans introduced displacement into their communication (referencing things that aren't immediately present in time or place) -- something that no other primate communication system did (or does). In fact, only two other species use communication systems to aid in recruitment efforts and thus rely on displacement: ants and bees. Bickerton spends time discussing the communicative techniques of ants and bees and how they ultimately differ from the language that humans developed.
I appreciated Bickerton's scathing, but good-natured, critique of Chomsky's ridiculous position on language evolution and his insightful weigh-in on the debate about Piraha, an Amazonian language that does not have recursion. Throughout the book, I was impressed by both the depth and breadth of Bickerton's knowledge, not just about linguistics (his specialty), but also primatology, biology, paleontology, and philosophy. If you're interested in how language could have begun, you couldn't ask for a better teacher than Bickerton, who succeeds in taking all the hundreds of small questions and debates about language evolution from vastly different fields and consolidates them into a coherent and compelling account of what the evidence currently seems to indicate. Rather than engaging in scholarly but ultimately pointless speculation and hedging, Bickerton goes out on a limb, proposes an idea using all the evidence at hand, and presents his case to the reader with all his cards above the table -- a stance on scholarship that's refreshingly enjoyable.
His explanatory tool is niche construction, the idea that organisms shape and are shaped by their environment. Bickerton argues that language (and all the incremental steps along the way that separated it from animal communication systems) was a particular set of skills and "tricks" that allowed early hominids to thrive in their niche, which the evidence indicates was one of "power scavenging." This form of scavening involves using tools to get at the carcasses of large herbivores before other scavengers can get to them, thus giving the pre-humans a competitive advantage in the food chain. Language, Bickertain maintains, developed in response to the pressure to recruit others to help in the power scavenging effort, which would have been too dangerous and complex for one individual to handle on their own. In so doing, humans introduced displacement into their communication (referencing things that aren't immediately present in time or place) -- something that no other primate communication system did (or does). In fact, only two other species use communication systems to aid in recruitment efforts and thus rely on displacement: ants and bees. Bickerton spends time discussing the communicative techniques of ants and bees and how they ultimately differ from the language that humans developed.
I appreciated Bickerton's scathing, but good-natured, critique of Chomsky's ridiculous position on language evolution and his insightful weigh-in on the debate about Piraha, an Amazonian language that does not have recursion. Throughout the book, I was impressed by both the depth and breadth of Bickerton's knowledge, not just about linguistics (his specialty), but also primatology, biology, paleontology, and philosophy. If you're interested in how language could have begun, you couldn't ask for a better teacher than Bickerton, who succeeds in taking all the hundreds of small questions and debates about language evolution from vastly different fields and consolidates them into a coherent and compelling account of what the evidence currently seems to indicate. Rather than engaging in scholarly but ultimately pointless speculation and hedging, Bickerton goes out on a limb, proposes an idea using all the evidence at hand, and presents his case to the reader with all his cards above the table -- a stance on scholarship that's refreshingly enjoyable.
August 24, 2018
Âdem’in Dili, lisanın nasıl türediğini ve bir kez türedikten sonra insan türünün yaşayışını nasıl biçimlendirdiğini kendine mesele edinmiş değerli bir eser. Bu amaç doğrultusunda ilerlerken evrimsel süreç, ilk insanların -hatta insansıların- ve diğer canlıların yaşayış biçimleri, beslenme alışkanlıkları, birbirleriyle ilişkileri gibi konularda pek çok değerli bilgiyi de okuyucusuna aktarıyor.
Edebiyat dışı bir eser olmasına karşın dili kesinlikle sıkıcı değil, aksine oldukça sürükleyici bir anlatımı var ki burada çevirmenin hakkını teslim etmek gerek. Konular sistematik bir şekilde ele alınmış, yazar kendi kritiğini yapmaktan kaçınmamış.
Yazar, önermelerini hayli güçlü dayanaklara yaslıyor ve kurguladığı model beni fazlasıyla tatmin etti. Ancak bir arkadaşımın da dediği gibi sonuçta bu da bir diğer teori ve lisanın nasıl oluştuğunu muhtemelen hiçbir zaman öğrenemeyeceğiz. Bu tür kitaplardan mevcut sorulara cevap bulmalarını istediğim kadar -hatta belki daha da fazla- zihnime yeni soru işaretleri takmalarını, merak dürtümü tetiklemelerini, bakış açımı genişletmelerini de beklediğim için oldukça verimli bir okuma serüveni oldu benim için.
Herkesin içinde kendine göre bir şeyler bulabileceğini düşündüğüm bu ufuk açıcı eseri konuya ilgi duyan duymayan tüm okuyuculara tavsiye ediyorum.
Edebiyat dışı bir eser olmasına karşın dili kesinlikle sıkıcı değil, aksine oldukça sürükleyici bir anlatımı var ki burada çevirmenin hakkını teslim etmek gerek. Konular sistematik bir şekilde ele alınmış, yazar kendi kritiğini yapmaktan kaçınmamış.
Yazar, önermelerini hayli güçlü dayanaklara yaslıyor ve kurguladığı model beni fazlasıyla tatmin etti. Ancak bir arkadaşımın da dediği gibi sonuçta bu da bir diğer teori ve lisanın nasıl oluştuğunu muhtemelen hiçbir zaman öğrenemeyeceğiz. Bu tür kitaplardan mevcut sorulara cevap bulmalarını istediğim kadar -hatta belki daha da fazla- zihnime yeni soru işaretleri takmalarını, merak dürtümü tetiklemelerini, bakış açımı genişletmelerini de beklediğim için oldukça verimli bir okuma serüveni oldu benim için.
Herkesin içinde kendine göre bir şeyler bulabileceğini düşündüğüm bu ufuk açıcı eseri konuya ilgi duyan duymayan tüm okuyuculara tavsiye ediyorum.
July 7, 2012
I first heard about Derek Bickerton in Language: A Social Mirror. I think the book I'd heard of was Bastard Tongues, or perhaps another of his books, but upon going to GoodReads this was the one that looked most interesting at that moment, and the one I spent my Dad's money on.
The reason it interested me was because I'm interested in evolution and language, but not as a scientist— more like a fiction writer. So I was looking for more a plausible scenario for how language started than the other interesting points Mr. Bickerton proposed.
The three most interesting things in this book, and the ones which were, consequently, most helpful:
1) A run-down of bee communication. While this will probably never prove useful, it was fascinating.
2) The scenario of hunting/scavenging proposed. Preying on just-dead megafauna or bone marrow was kind of mind-blowing. And epic. Something I never thought about, but that certainly makes a whole lot of sense.
3) the idea that humans are like ants. While this sounds ridiculous, Bickerton notes that ants scavenge objects much larger than themselves— much like humans did in scavenging just-dead elephants. Ants cultivate aphids. Humans cultivate cows, sheep, goats, pigs… etc. Ants create fungus by 'farming' other foods. Humans planted fields. This, like the first interesting thing, is probably not going to prove useful, but it's a thought-provoking idea.
I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't have the interest or the patience to get through the first hundred pages. While the ideas were interesting, and the explanations of other theories (and the reasons why they don't work), was interesting, it wasn't a particularly engrossing book— probably because I'm not passionate about language evolution, just interested.
The reason it interested me was because I'm interested in evolution and language, but not as a scientist— more like a fiction writer. So I was looking for more a plausible scenario for how language started than the other interesting points Mr. Bickerton proposed.
The three most interesting things in this book, and the ones which were, consequently, most helpful:
1) A run-down of bee communication. While this will probably never prove useful, it was fascinating.
2) The scenario of hunting/scavenging proposed. Preying on just-dead megafauna or bone marrow was kind of mind-blowing. And epic. Something I never thought about, but that certainly makes a whole lot of sense.
3) the idea that humans are like ants. While this sounds ridiculous, Bickerton notes that ants scavenge objects much larger than themselves— much like humans did in scavenging just-dead elephants. Ants cultivate aphids. Humans cultivate cows, sheep, goats, pigs… etc. Ants create fungus by 'farming' other foods. Humans planted fields. This, like the first interesting thing, is probably not going to prove useful, but it's a thought-provoking idea.
I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't have the interest or the patience to get through the first hundred pages. While the ideas were interesting, and the explanations of other theories (and the reasons why they don't work), was interesting, it wasn't a particularly engrossing book— probably because I'm not passionate about language evolution, just interested.
September 5, 2011
I purchased this book expecting an exciting history of the co-evolution of language and the human mind; however, the author seems to have bitten off more than he can chew. His thesis runs all over the place in his attempt to pull together linguistics, early human history, anthropology, cognitive science and social science.
Especially galling is the author’s habit of refuting the hypotheses of some of his most esteemed colleagues, especially Steven Pinker, yet the points he refutes seem to be taken out of context or perhaps misrepresented. He does this so many times in the text that it seems that he wrote the book more as an uninterrupted forum for his own ideas rather than as a well-thought-out theory of humans and language. I often mused on the author's name, "Bickerton," and how it fit the nagging tone his arguments exhibited. I would also have liked to see more supporting material for his ideas.
While it is difficult to know the mind of the first homo sapiens, it seems that there are infinite ways to pull together such disparate factors into a coherent dialogue about early humans and linguistic theory. I would like to see that book, and I am willing to bet it was written by Steven Pinker.
Especially galling is the author’s habit of refuting the hypotheses of some of his most esteemed colleagues, especially Steven Pinker, yet the points he refutes seem to be taken out of context or perhaps misrepresented. He does this so many times in the text that it seems that he wrote the book more as an uninterrupted forum for his own ideas rather than as a well-thought-out theory of humans and language. I often mused on the author's name, "Bickerton," and how it fit the nagging tone his arguments exhibited. I would also have liked to see more supporting material for his ideas.
While it is difficult to know the mind of the first homo sapiens, it seems that there are infinite ways to pull together such disparate factors into a coherent dialogue about early humans and linguistic theory. I would like to see that book, and I am willing to bet it was written by Steven Pinker.
December 29, 2010
Phylogenetically, humans are African apes, close kin to chimpanzees and gorillas. Ecologically, however, we are more like eusocial insects such as bees, ants and termites. Our numbers are huge, many of us live in large cities, and our labor is specialized. We are not there yet, of course, but it took ants millions of years to become what they are now. Reproduction is not centralized among us the way it is among them, but our political structures pay close attention to it. We breed conformists: rebels and criminals are either executed or locked up in single-sex prisons, where they are denied the opportunity to reproduce. Apes and monkeys communicate with each other, but lack anything resembling true language; perhaps, says Bickerton, we should look at ants instead, as the Bible suggests. They don't have true language either, but then they don't have real brains; Bickerton argues that their communication is closer to ours than ape communication is. He then comes up with a just-so-story about australopitecines cooperatively scavenging carcasses of large herbivores on the savanna, and inventing language along the way.
May 3, 2013
A lackluster presentation of other theorists' ideas. It should have been edited down to a one line blurb on the back of the book that it promoted as its central theme; Niche Construction: the Neglected Process of Evolution by Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman. A book I might read in the future if I can get over the vile taste of bile that Bickerton's tone left me with every time I think of it.
January 31, 2022
I'm a long fan of Bickerton's work and had the pleasure of meeting him in the early 1990s. His books are well-written, informative, and easily understood.
One thing I noticed in Adam's Tongue not found in his other work is a bit more sarcasm, almost a snarkiness, than usual. He's always written with great wit and self-deprecation. This time I could almost hear him palm-slapping-to-head and saying "Duh!"
This sense comes from Bickerton's writing the book to correct some previous publications and share what (to him) is the ultimate Maslowing Hammer, niche theory.
He does a great job using this new hammer to smash his old scientific philosophies to bits as well as those of many others (including the much sainted Chomsky).
To that end, his arguments are good (as I'd expect them to be) and, as always, fun to read. He falls into the same homocentric traps he warns against a few times and only because he isn't going into mind numbing detail (and he admits this many times).
Is it a good read? If you like Dickerton, definitely. If you've not read his previous work, I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point. There's too much of himself looking in a mirror with finger pointing firmly at his reflection, disgustedly saying "You Putz!" Even if not recognized as such, it might filter through and taint one's appreciation of his work.
One thing I noticed in Adam's Tongue not found in his other work is a bit more sarcasm, almost a snarkiness, than usual. He's always written with great wit and self-deprecation. This time I could almost hear him palm-slapping-to-head and saying "Duh!"
This sense comes from Bickerton's writing the book to correct some previous publications and share what (to him) is the ultimate Maslowing Hammer, niche theory.
He does a great job using this new hammer to smash his old scientific philosophies to bits as well as those of many others (including the much sainted Chomsky).
To that end, his arguments are good (as I'd expect them to be) and, as always, fun to read. He falls into the same homocentric traps he warns against a few times and only because he isn't going into mind numbing detail (and he admits this many times).
Is it a good read? If you like Dickerton, definitely. If you've not read his previous work, I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point. There's too much of himself looking in a mirror with finger pointing firmly at his reflection, disgustedly saying "You Putz!" Even if not recognized as such, it might filter through and taint one's appreciation of his work.
July 9, 2024
This author was a science writer and possibly a scientist/linguist but comes across as a partisan of his discipline. I initially liked his critiques of the linguistic discipline but it was not at all complementary and he comes across even more aloof than Noam Chomsky who he has many disagreements with (apparently). From the title one might expect an amusing introduction to linguistics which IMO is never really provided. And the author uses the ACS mnemonic through the books which I think he decodes once for his readers as Animal Communication Systems. While the author appears to defend animal intelligence in other species, he clearly believes in human superior language ability (which IMO may not be true).
December 8, 2009
“Adam’s Tongue” is a significant departure from the previous book by Derek Bickerton (“Bastard Tongues”), which indulged in intellectual autobiography at the expense of rigor in narrative and presentation. Though no less entertainingly written (as a matter of fact, the superior structure is less distracting), this book stands head and shoulders above the other one as a work of popular science.
The first part of the book is a coherent survey of the current theories in the evolution of language among humans, and Bickerton is very careful in analyzing each of these to figure out whether they pass muster in an actual evolutionary framework. For example, one neat theory about the development of language emphasizes the role of gossip, but it’s difficult to understand how that would have been integral to the survival and development of the human race as we see it now. It’s a pleasure to see the author dispense with hand-waving and wishful thinking among existing theories, and he is refreshingly willing to outline how and where he’s diverging from the evidence. Of course, with this author, there are quite a few such departures. These are the sorts of arguments which lead into the central beauty of Bickerton’s narrative: that it’s impossible to understand human development without understanding where language came into being, and vice versa.
For the most part, Bickerton’s status as a linguist serves us well: he is able to take a broad view of evolutionary biology without the prejudices of scientists more deeply steeped in their academic niche, while his familiarity with linguistics (leading into a fascinating break with Chomsky’s generative grammar) allows him to consider the subtleties separating human language and animal communication. It turns out that we may have less in common with the apes than the ants – no other species has done more to shape their environment as much as their environment has shaped them, and we could have hardly done it without language.
The first part of the book is a coherent survey of the current theories in the evolution of language among humans, and Bickerton is very careful in analyzing each of these to figure out whether they pass muster in an actual evolutionary framework. For example, one neat theory about the development of language emphasizes the role of gossip, but it’s difficult to understand how that would have been integral to the survival and development of the human race as we see it now. It’s a pleasure to see the author dispense with hand-waving and wishful thinking among existing theories, and he is refreshingly willing to outline how and where he’s diverging from the evidence. Of course, with this author, there are quite a few such departures. These are the sorts of arguments which lead into the central beauty of Bickerton’s narrative: that it’s impossible to understand human development without understanding where language came into being, and vice versa.
For the most part, Bickerton’s status as a linguist serves us well: he is able to take a broad view of evolutionary biology without the prejudices of scientists more deeply steeped in their academic niche, while his familiarity with linguistics (leading into a fascinating break with Chomsky’s generative grammar) allows him to consider the subtleties separating human language and animal communication. It turns out that we may have less in common with the apes than the ants – no other species has done more to shape their environment as much as their environment has shaped them, and we could have hardly done it without language.
June 22, 2014
This book takes its cue from some of the ideas in Bickerton's earlier books, Language and Species and his memoir/travelogue Bastard Tongues (a FUN read) to take another crack at "the hardest problem in science". Well, in some ways it's an intractable problem (for now at least) and I always wonder at some point after I read books like this why I expected some substantial new insight.
With this book I've come to realize I'll read anything by Bickerton. Language and Species was sort of formative for me as it was one of the first linguistic books I read; so many new ideas, so clearly and compellingly argued. Bastard Tongues was just a great ride; in addition to Bickerton's "lucid and irreverent style" made mention of in the blurb (two apt descriptors of DB for sure), the man can spin a yarn. I understand he's taken on a rogue/maverick sort of role in the field, I suppose after the Desert Island experiment thing, so sometimes I get the feeling he's just poking some others in the field with a stick, but in all his books what you mostly get is a wonderful sense of a bright and flexible mind hard at work and full of ideas.
There is a good bit of originality in the book, and Bickerton is a fine writer in terms of two maxims I learned early in college: "speak plainly" and "be specific". In this manner he makes a lot of complex stuff accessible, even easy to understand. However, there is also a lot of argument-as-war stuff too, which, even if it's a necessary evil in some areas, is never my favorite way to the truth.
A very good book. Recommended for anyone interested in language at any level, with the caveat that at the end of the day much of the study of language evolution remains speculative.
With this book I've come to realize I'll read anything by Bickerton. Language and Species was sort of formative for me as it was one of the first linguistic books I read; so many new ideas, so clearly and compellingly argued. Bastard Tongues was just a great ride; in addition to Bickerton's "lucid and irreverent style" made mention of in the blurb (two apt descriptors of DB for sure), the man can spin a yarn. I understand he's taken on a rogue/maverick sort of role in the field, I suppose after the Desert Island experiment thing, so sometimes I get the feeling he's just poking some others in the field with a stick, but in all his books what you mostly get is a wonderful sense of a bright and flexible mind hard at work and full of ideas.
There is a good bit of originality in the book, and Bickerton is a fine writer in terms of two maxims I learned early in college: "speak plainly" and "be specific". In this manner he makes a lot of complex stuff accessible, even easy to understand. However, there is also a lot of argument-as-war stuff too, which, even if it's a necessary evil in some areas, is never my favorite way to the truth.
A very good book. Recommended for anyone interested in language at any level, with the caveat that at the end of the day much of the study of language evolution remains speculative.
August 5, 2011
This book is just about the most perfect match of brilliant insights and frustrating authorial personality I've encountered---much has been made, even in the book's own blurbs, of Bickerton's often snarky dismemberment of competing theories and ideas, but, despite this, the array of fascinating tidbits and flawlessly argued rhetoric in regards to the evolution of language make this a dynamo for anyone who fancies his/herself a person of linguistic and/or anthropological curiosity. Included within are examinations of the practical necessities for the first protolanguage utterances (recruitment for scavenging African megafauna, of course) to an exploration of a fantastic new wrinkle in evolutionary theory (niche construction, which capitalizes on the flexibility of genetics to enable a more reciprocal evolution) to a breakdown of the intuitive-but-incorrect thinking that leads people to seek language clues in our nearest primate relatives, rather than those unlikely species whose needs are actually similar to our own (think: ants).
Ultimately, this is a book well worth the prickliness of its author, and the sheer number of pages I dogeared is a testament to that fact.
Ultimately, this is a book well worth the prickliness of its author, and the sheer number of pages I dogeared is a testament to that fact.
October 4, 2017
An incomplete theory mixed with random bashing of other theories. (The bashing of other theories is the useful part.) This is the second hardest problem in biology/psychology/evolution, and 2nd in line. Until we understand Consciousness and free will any theory on language is premature. Right now, science hasn't a clue and reverts to dogma. Bickerton is slightly less guilty of dogma, relying on fictional story telling rather than "faith in science" to present his position.
Read
December 15, 2015I really like Bickerton, & it all started here. I find his ideas plausible & his evidence sound, & it's presented with a degree of skepticism-- he's proposing a notion, & backing it up with evidence, but he's not entrenched in dogma. The right side of academic for my taste, too-- not just an over-long article. --MK
January 23, 2020
Basitçe anlatılabilecek bir teorem üzerine uzun, ağdalı, kibirli bir kitap. Temelde anlattığı teorem mantıklı olsa da, kitabın uzunluğunu telafi edemiyor. Bu haliyle ne iyi bir pop-sci kitabı, ne de iyi bir akademik çalışma değil.
October 11, 2021
This book is so good. His writing style was a little off-putting at first, but I got over it before long. It's just his style and he's really not trying to be overly aggressive or anything like that. He is just dissecting the info that's out there, unabashedly and with flare. It's kind of like when someone playfully goads their friends. If you take their words too personally you'll be offended, but there's no ill-will there. And the author comes across as absolutely brilliant. He tells you his entire thought process and why what he's saying is so significant in the context of the current field of linguistics as well as intersecting fields. To do all that - and he notes this himself - he needs to examine what thought is already out there and why it's wrong. It makes for an incredibly compelling argument as he goes through an extremely elaborate process of deduction, ruling out other arguments until only one possibility is apparently left.
Now, I have lived long enough to know that just because an author is brilliant and compelling and has convinced me in their book does not make them right. So I plan on researching this further to see what the reactions to the book by other linguists have been, and so on. There were also a few random things that didn't really make sense to me, but they seemed relatively insignificant and did not change his overarching points. Right now I'm convinced that I just learned, for real, the history of the evolution of language, especially of its origins. With some details that will need to be further studied and worked out, but the basic points being true. He even suggests a whole new field of study within linguistics.
Plus, the book early on confirmed something that I had kind of thought for a long time without necessarily putting it into words... that language was a major driver of our evolution into being modern humans.
I feel like I can now imagine just how language evolved in hypothetical aliens, how it could easily evolve in another species on Earth. That I can now understand exactly what's happening when I watch Stella the (Talking) Dog use buttons to "speak" English, and how and why it won't turn into language as we know it.
This book expertly brings together so many disciplines and various fields of interest that interest me immensely: language acquisition, archeological anthropology, evolution, primatology, neuroscience. It was a delight to read and I'm sure has contributed immensely to the field of linguistics.
I just read the book and am sad to see the author died in 2018.
P.S. To the Amazon reviewer who claimed this book suddenly takes a turn into "political correctness," I think you pretty much have to be a conservative who loves complaining about "liberals" being "politically correct" to interpret anything in this book that way. Plus he literally takes down your accusation before you even made it, just as you'd expect an expert debater to do... himself critiquing political correctness in ways that are *actually valid* and as neutral as you can get. You, on the other hand, are not critiquing at all but just repeating the same macho, "man must be big strong alpha hunter" arguments he criticizes. He criticizes both y'all and feminists, but you just can't stand the idea that our ancestors were scavengers or that women did anything other than make babies and pick berries. That's your whole argument. How dare someone suggest that women did anything other than act as servants of men... must be political correctness at work! If anything, the author is catering to male sexists by calling the book "Adam's Tongue" rather than "Eve's Tongue" or better yet "Lucy's Tongue," since the earliest modern human bones discovered were named Lucy.
Now, I have lived long enough to know that just because an author is brilliant and compelling and has convinced me in their book does not make them right. So I plan on researching this further to see what the reactions to the book by other linguists have been, and so on. There were also a few random things that didn't really make sense to me, but they seemed relatively insignificant and did not change his overarching points. Right now I'm convinced that I just learned, for real, the history of the evolution of language, especially of its origins. With some details that will need to be further studied and worked out, but the basic points being true. He even suggests a whole new field of study within linguistics.
Plus, the book early on confirmed something that I had kind of thought for a long time without necessarily putting it into words... that language was a major driver of our evolution into being modern humans.
I feel like I can now imagine just how language evolved in hypothetical aliens, how it could easily evolve in another species on Earth. That I can now understand exactly what's happening when I watch Stella the (Talking) Dog use buttons to "speak" English, and how and why it won't turn into language as we know it.
This book expertly brings together so many disciplines and various fields of interest that interest me immensely: language acquisition, archeological anthropology, evolution, primatology, neuroscience. It was a delight to read and I'm sure has contributed immensely to the field of linguistics.
I just read the book and am sad to see the author died in 2018.
P.S. To the Amazon reviewer who claimed this book suddenly takes a turn into "political correctness," I think you pretty much have to be a conservative who loves complaining about "liberals" being "politically correct" to interpret anything in this book that way. Plus he literally takes down your accusation before you even made it, just as you'd expect an expert debater to do... himself critiquing political correctness in ways that are *actually valid* and as neutral as you can get. You, on the other hand, are not critiquing at all but just repeating the same macho, "man must be big strong alpha hunter" arguments he criticizes. He criticizes both y'all and feminists, but you just can't stand the idea that our ancestors were scavengers or that women did anything other than make babies and pick berries. That's your whole argument. How dare someone suggest that women did anything other than act as servants of men... must be political correctness at work! If anything, the author is catering to male sexists by calling the book "Adam's Tongue" rather than "Eve's Tongue" or better yet "Lucy's Tongue," since the earliest modern human bones discovered were named Lucy.
October 31, 2020
Adam's Tongue advances a brilliant -- and highly plausible -- hypothesis about the origins of language. Bickerton develops this hypothesis systematically, along the way strongly and effectively critiquing the major alternative hypotheses that were current as of the book's writing. Whether Bickerton's theory proves true -- whether any theory of language's origins can, in fact, ever be 'proven' true -- is an open question, as Bickerton himself freely concedes. But science advances by developing hypotheses and accounts that best fit all the evidence. By this standard, Bickerton, I think, has significantly advanced the study of the key question that concerns him. Adam's Tongue was published in 2009. I'm very interested to know what its reception was in Bickerton's field, and what if any impact it has had since. I can see no grounds for according Bickerton's hypothesis anything less than the most serious consideration.
A fascinating read from start to finish, Adam's Tongue was also a very entertaining one. In addition to writing rigorously, Bickerton also writes quite engagingly. This book should be of great interests to specialists and non-specialists alike. I can't recommend it more highly.
A fascinating read from start to finish, Adam's Tongue was also a very entertaining one. In addition to writing rigorously, Bickerton also writes quite engagingly. This book should be of great interests to specialists and non-specialists alike. I can't recommend it more highly.
December 8, 2019
Provocative, entertaining; full of holes
Bickerton's clear explanation of the often misunderstood concept of ecological niche, and the way in which it modifies the old "genes are everything" model, is enough in itself to make the book worth borrowing.
Beyond that, he says more about who is wrong than about what is right. That is always fun, but rarely useful. He advances some interesting hypotheses about how language may have developed: to be fair, he admits they are no more than hypotheses. Worse, he relies, severytimes, on arguments that are (or seem to me to be) indistinguishable from ones he rubbished a few chapters before.
He does a great service by clarifying the true significance of the achievements in teaching human-like language to non-human animals, and in raising the question of why this was not attempted centuries ago.
Bickerton's clear explanation of the often misunderstood concept of ecological niche, and the way in which it modifies the old "genes are everything" model, is enough in itself to make the book worth borrowing.
Beyond that, he says more about who is wrong than about what is right. That is always fun, but rarely useful. He advances some interesting hypotheses about how language may have developed: to be fair, he admits they are no more than hypotheses. Worse, he relies, severytimes, on arguments that are (or seem to me to be) indistinguishable from ones he rubbished a few chapters before.
He does a great service by clarifying the true significance of the achievements in teaching human-like language to non-human animals, and in raising the question of why this was not attempted centuries ago.
January 4, 2022
Though it is a very new area of knowledge to me, this book is so charming written that I get very intrigued. I have never questioned how language was made, and now I am so fascinated by all relevant theories mentioned in the books, from natural selection, evolution to niche contribution theory, etc.
As disclaimer, knowledge comes in may change the certainty of a theory, (what may be certain yesterday becomes nonsense tomorrow and then possible the day after - depends on what information we get) but it is of high confidence that it is the best the author could deliver as per the time of publication - there is no doubt of it - the way language were viewed from different fields: biology, ecology, paleontology, linguistics, etc.
Language is an evolution - for sure, but learning how it evolves is not a simple problem-solving!
As disclaimer, knowledge comes in may change the certainty of a theory, (what may be certain yesterday becomes nonsense tomorrow and then possible the day after - depends on what information we get) but it is of high confidence that it is the best the author could deliver as per the time of publication - there is no doubt of it - the way language were viewed from different fields: biology, ecology, paleontology, linguistics, etc.
Language is an evolution - for sure, but learning how it evolves is not a simple problem-solving!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2018
Lisanın nasıl ve neden doğmuş olabileceği üzerine güzel bir çalışma. Yepyeni şeyler öğrendim okurken. Kafamdaki soruların bir kısmını yanıtladı, bir kısmını ise daha içinden çıkılmaz hale getirdi. Ve bu içinden çıkılmazlık zaten başlı başına bir zevk; kitabı okunabilir ve sürükleyici kılan da bu. Metrobüste giderken bile (yani en vahşi koşullarda bile) kitaptan öğrendiğim bilgileri düşünürken yakalıyorum kendimi.
Öte yandan yazarın dili ve üslubu beni biraz huzursuz etti. Kavgacı ve huysuz bir adam bu, herkesi (ve neyse ki kendini de) mütemadiyen babalıyor. Bazen de adeta agresif bir pazarlamacıya dönüşüyor, “ay tamam, ne satıyorsan alacağım, yeter ki sus” dedirtiyor insana. Keşke daha sakin anlatsaydı. :)
Öte yandan yazarın dili ve üslubu beni biraz huzursuz etti. Kavgacı ve huysuz bir adam bu, herkesi (ve neyse ki kendini de) mütemadiyen babalıyor. Bazen de adeta agresif bir pazarlamacıya dönüşüyor, “ay tamam, ne satıyorsan alacağım, yeter ki sus” dedirtiyor insana. Keşke daha sakin anlatsaydı. :)
February 7, 2020
Most concise book on the topic
Not only does this book explain, in precise terms, the philosophical and scientific issues underlying the study of the origin of language, it employs language in a concise and plain manner, to propose a logical framework to answer the questions: “How and Why did our ancestors develop language? And, “Why haven’t Other species?” Absolute MUST READ.
Not only does this book explain, in precise terms, the philosophical and scientific issues underlying the study of the origin of language, it employs language in a concise and plain manner, to propose a logical framework to answer the questions: “How and Why did our ancestors develop language? And, “Why haven’t Other species?” Absolute MUST READ.
April 9, 2021
It's oddly aggressive compared to other books on the same subject- the author name drops other linguists, just to say they're wrong, in a way that seems unnecessary. You can explain a theory without tearing others down.
November 18, 2023
Although this is not an easy read, it is worth sticking with. Bickerton offers a different approach to the evolution of language that is worth exploring. My recommendation with challenging books such as this, is to limit yourself to a few pages a day and allow it to percolate in your brain.
July 7, 2019
Good, clear, logical explanation. Best I've read on the evolution of language.
October 3, 2021
It is not an academic book by style; full of scattered stuffs here and there of the text. anyway it has many ideas worthy of taking into a serious account about the origins of language.
April 8, 2024
Trash.
March 10, 2016
Derek Bickerton provides a concise formulation for how language developed -- not as a principle that emerged from having big brains or any other vague sense of human-centricism, but instead as a need for natural selection. He does this against the context driven explanations of Stephen J Gould and the equally vague mechanisms of Richard Dawkins and Daniel C Dennett's gene. Bickerton argues that natural selection can also be enforced by animal behavior, that how we choose to live and conduct ourselves will ultimately be part of the mechanism of natural selection.
Bickerton also provides the interesting supposition that the key feature for human language breaking out of animal communication systems (which are not languages but appropriate systems of communication for each given animal) is displacement. With displacement we can then iconologize our language to speak of events and occurrences that happened not just in the past but also not in the immediate locality. This displacement of time and space is the very question for humans about why life and purpose of the future.
We created these existential questions out of the shock of language displacement -- not as a natural condition of the universe but because our ability to ask questions reflects back onto us so that even our very presence is both explained by language and unexplainable.
Bickerton writes with light humor, clear awareness of the issues and a very compelling enthusiasm and wonder for the topic. He addresses objections, and illustrates clearly how we should think about the problems in science for they do not just address the general problems of life but also sometimes come to complement our lazy way of considering these problems so that we see what we want to see. Reading Bickerton is a breath of fresh air as he is able to highlight the method by which we should proceed -- something that is often buried in the desire to find convenient answers by our unwillingness to question who we are and what we are doing.
Bickerton also provides the interesting supposition that the key feature for human language breaking out of animal communication systems (which are not languages but appropriate systems of communication for each given animal) is displacement. With displacement we can then iconologize our language to speak of events and occurrences that happened not just in the past but also not in the immediate locality. This displacement of time and space is the very question for humans about why life and purpose of the future.
We created these existential questions out of the shock of language displacement -- not as a natural condition of the universe but because our ability to ask questions reflects back onto us so that even our very presence is both explained by language and unexplainable.
Bickerton writes with light humor, clear awareness of the issues and a very compelling enthusiasm and wonder for the topic. He addresses objections, and illustrates clearly how we should think about the problems in science for they do not just address the general problems of life but also sometimes come to complement our lazy way of considering these problems so that we see what we want to see. Reading Bickerton is a breath of fresh air as he is able to highlight the method by which we should proceed -- something that is often buried in the desire to find convenient answers by our unwillingness to question who we are and what we are doing.
January 16, 2012
How did language and advanced thought evolve? Is one the prerequisite for the other? Bickerton gives his take, upending conventional wisdom (or at least, his take on conventional wisdom - I don't actually know).
The pace undulates throughout, at times getting mired in what appear to be personal battles against the "language elite". And that's my main beef: the apparent vendetta detracts and distracts from the thesis. My other dislike is the abrupt ending. The book spends the bulk of its pages building up disparate pieces of his argument before synthesizing it at the end... and then spends a precious few pages projecting where it will lead us.
That said, this book opened my eyes to an intriguing question that I hadn't even realized existed. Furthermore, it gave me a starting point for thinking about the problem by constructing an argument for one theory. That's well worth the minor inconveniences suffered.
The pace undulates throughout, at times getting mired in what appear to be personal battles against the "language elite". And that's my main beef: the apparent vendetta detracts and distracts from the thesis. My other dislike is the abrupt ending. The book spends the bulk of its pages building up disparate pieces of his argument before synthesizing it at the end... and then spends a precious few pages projecting where it will lead us.
That said, this book opened my eyes to an intriguing question that I hadn't even realized existed. Furthermore, it gave me a starting point for thinking about the problem by constructing an argument for one theory. That's well worth the minor inconveniences suffered.
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