Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic fossils" such as "ape talk," the "two-word" stage of small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive "protolanguage" could have offered Homo erectus a novel ecological niche. He goes on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into the languages we speak today. "You are drawn into Bickerton's] appreciation of the dominant role language plays not...
Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic ...
"What this book proposes to do," writes Derek Bickerton, "is to stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its head: instead of the human species growing clever enough to invent language, it will view that species as blundering into language and, as a direct result of that, becoming clever." According to Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is the...
"What this book proposes to do," writes Derek Bickerton, "is to stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its head: instead of th...
Bastard Tongues is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human--what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible. The story focuses on languages so low in the pecking order that many people don't regard them as languages at all--Creole languages spoken by descendants of slaves and indentured laborers in plantation colonies all over the world.
The story is told by Derek Bickerton, who has...
Bastard Tongues is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be hum...
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...
How language evolved has been called "the hardest problem in science." In Adam's Tongue, Derek Bickerton--long a leading authority in this field--s...
In the first volume of the Commandment trilogy, we left Zachary, the failed hermit, as he began to expiate his sins in the interior desert of fourth-century Egypt. This second volume links his story with that of Leila, the peasant girl whom the bandit Darion saved from rape at the hands of his gang. While Zachary goes through a series of bizarre experiences in a lost desert oasis, Leila travels to the White Monastery, ruled by the ruthless Shenoute, where instead of the holy calm she expected she finds only lesbian practices and spiteful intrigue. When Zachary falls mortally ill he is rescued...
In the first volume of the Commandment trilogy, we left Zachary, the failed hermit, as he began to expiate his sins in the interior desert of fourth-c...
