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| The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language | 
 enlarge | Author: Christine Kenneally
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 37812
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0143113747
Dewey Decimal Number: 400
EAN: 9780143113744
ASIN: 0143113747
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
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Product Description
An accessible exploration of a burgeoning new field: the incredible evolution of language
The first popular book to recount the exciting, very recent developments in tracing the origins of language, The First Word is at the forefront of a controversial, compelling new field. Acclaimed science writer Christine Kenneally explains how a relatively small group of scientists that include Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker assembled the astounding narrative of how the fundamental process of evolution produced a linguistic apein other words, us. Infused with the wonder of discovery, this vital and engrossing book offers us all a better understanding of the story of humankind.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Everybody's Talking August 13, 2007
52 out of 53 found this review helpful
More than anything else, I came away from The First Word thinking that linguists love to argue. In fact, every few pages I found myself arguing with author Christine Kenneally and I'm not even a linguist. I disagreed with much of the book and wanted more evidence for many of her arguments. But when I find myself thinking about a book this much and discussing it with people at length, I have to give it five stars.
The subject is the origin of human language. How did it start? Obviously there's no way of knowing, but that doesn't (nor should it) keep linguists from looking for the answer. Since no one can prove or disprove any of the theories about language origin, it's a free-for-all. Linguists seem to enjoy knocking their colleagues' theories even more than they enjoy defending their own theories.
Kenneally is mostly even-handed in her presentation of the many interesting theories currently in debate. However, she chides Martin Gardner for a 1980 article he wrote debunking experiments claiming to have taught chimps, apes, and dolphins human language. Gardner acknowledged the popularity of such experiments, especially when they featured an attractive blonde scientist teaching an ape (evoking Beauty and the Beast) to "talk." Kenneally suspects that no one writes of Chomsky or other male scientists by describing their hair or appearance. Yet Kenneally thinks nothing of mentioning Steven Pinker's "flop of curls" or that Stephen Jay Gould is "short and remarkably loud."
Many of the theories about language origin seem to rest on isolated cases. Linguists cite the case of Genie, a girl who was raised by people who didn't speak to her. She didn't learn to speak and when she was removed from the abusive environment as a teenager, she couldn't learn to speak. It is difficult to draw valid conclusions from a few psychologically scarred individuals.
Kenneally is a linguist and also a journalist, so she is able to condense and present these complex ideas to people who have no background in linguistics but who are interested in it anyway. Sometimes the going gets a little tough, but there are some amusing asides to ease the way, such as the story of what happened when two gorillas who had learned sign language got together and had a sign language shouting match.
It's obvious that there's a lot more that we don't know about language origin and less that we do know. Only twenty or thirty years ago anthropologists were listing the attributes that make us human. Opposable thumbs, using tools, making tools, language, self-awareness. Point by point, evidence has shown that we are not unique, at least not in the ways we had defined ourselves. The same thing has happened with our arguments for why we speak but other animals don't: the descended larynx, the bigger brain, more complex thoughts, a greater need to communicate. Maybe we should stop trying to teach dolphins and apes to use human language and try to communicate with dolphins and apes in their language. We might learn something.
In any case The First Word is a great introduction and a tidy summary of the debate on language origin as it stands today. But read it soon because the evidence and theories are bound to change quickly.
A slap on the face for those who fight over language "supremacy" July 27, 2007
39 out of 53 found this review helpful
What a fascinating idea for a book! Kenneally, with her simple, witty, journalistic style approach, explores the evolution of language in a manner even a layperson could grasp and enjoy. The book's flow and wittiness will appeal to anyone interested in knowing how our ancestors even started to say the basic words of our languages, wherever they came from.
My biggest "take away" from this book is how we, humans, genetically evolved as a special group of species, with an ability to "speak" and communicate with each other, have thrown ourselves into a conflict zone filled with hatred and racism that is sometimes closely related to language.
In India, States that speak different "languages" clash over water, land and even movies and movie stars. An outsider will have a hard time differentiating the thirty odd languages that are spoken in different parts of India, but each one of them consider themselves "superior" compared to their counterparts, and stereotype and ridicule each other, politically, and socially . When you closely monitor their linguistic style, it's pretty clear that all of them evolved from very similar sources marvelously described by Kenneally.
In Sri Lanka, there is a civil war that is being fought, purely on "linguistic" basis between two groups that speak different languages. Again, when you research, there may not be many differences between those languages as lucidly explained by Kenneally.
If you enjoyed Jared Diamond's works, you will sure like this one. Guaranteed.
N.Sivakumar
Author of:
America Misunderstood: What a Second Bush Victory Meant to the Rest of the World
Evolution vs. Innate Capability August 18, 2007
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
As the title suggests, this book does not lay out a theory for the origins of language. It is a solid effort to capture the debate between linguistics and many other branches of science concerning the origin and development of language, more specifically human language. It is a highly controversial subject with great disagreements among many well known scientists, which is well captured by the author, a linguist as well as a journalist.
Noam Chomsky, longtime professor of linguistics at MIT, has been the giant of linguistic studies. It is his theories that are the starting point for the origins, even the definition, of language. But as the author shows, his basic view that humans possess a highly localized center of the brain that emerged due to some form of genetic mutation fairly complete in its ability for language is now largely unaccepted by a preponderance of the scientific community. Instead, language is seen to be a part of a general capability to communicate and has been evolving for millions of years with some periods more significant than others, in particular one about 200,000 years ago.
The Chomskian emphasis on language syntax has given way to the evolution of practical communication including the importance of gestures as a forerunner to spoken language. A variety of injuries and surgeries to the brain have discredited the notion that the center of language is located in a particular area of the brain. Perhaps most important are a number of studies that clearly demonstrate that animals have highly effective understanding and communication abilities that exist outside the bounds of Chomskian formalities, though admittedly at far less than human levels.
The book in attempting to thoroughly cover the debate runs into the problem of detail saturation with clear understanding and continuity of the argument sacrificed. Perhaps that is inevitable because there is no overriding theory on which to hang the various positions taken. The book is a nice introduction to the subject of language definition and origin.
An Impressive Suite October 17, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
The development of our incredible ability to make meanings out scribbles on a rock or a page remains a stunning evolutionary leap. This book is a wonderful outline of some of the factors that went into the development of language. It is also full of interesting insights into the disputes between some of the major experts in the field.
Christine Kenneally is a linguist who writes about language for the genera public, and here she stresses the importance of looking at language as a set of abilities, many of which we share with other species. An important key to language, and one that has lead to sometimes fractious debates, is to understand where these abilities overlap with and diverge from those found in species like chimpanzees, monkeys and dolphins. Abstract language may be uniquely human, but most of the neurological machinery that it uses has been present in other species for millions of years.
Christine takes us on a journey through gesture and imitation and the evidence that they were important in the development of speech and language. She takes in the whole debate about whether or not speech is the medium of communication with others, while language exists only for communication with ourselves, or whether language and speech are inextricably linked. We learn about the syntax of anima vocalizations and the discovery of FOXP2, a gene of profound importance to the development of human language.
Although I have been interested in language for three decades, and thought that I knew quite a lot about it, I finished this book feeling re-energized.
After I closed the book I looked again at the title, "The First Word," and marveled at the extraordinary suite of cognitive abilities that enabled me to take those three words, decode them, link them to other thoughts, images and memories, before finally extracting their meaning.
That sequence is in itself quite remarkable. It is even more so when we realize that the sophisticated system that we use every day has likely only existed for a few tens of thousands of years.
Christine is an excellent writer who not only understands the issues but can also communicate them with a rare lightness of touch.
Highly recommended
Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life
 Interesting, but heavy slogging. December 29, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
"The First Word", Christine Kenneally's "search for the origins of language" comes with its share of celebrity endorsements. The back cover contains laudatory blurbs from both Steven Pinker ("a clear and splendidly written account ...") and author of "The Ghost Map", Steven Johnson, ("a rare and delightful mix..."). Then there is the following gem on the inside jacket cover - "The First Word is not only a compelling historical account of our greatest intellectual faculty but a provocative consideration of what it means, finally, to be human".
Well, it seems hardly fair to hold an author accountable for whatever silliness her publishers might assemble on a book's exterior in the interest of boosting sales. Let's just say that this book is ambitious in its scope and that the author is obviously academically well-qualified. My own formal qualifications in the field of linguistics are non-existent, so this review is from the point of view of a non-specialist with a keen amateur interest in the topic.
An obvious question: `is this a book for the non-specialist?' I think that the publishers would like to market it as such, and that Dr. Kenneally possibly thinks of it that way. But, much as I wanted to like this book, if it is meant to be accessible to the general reader, I think it falls well short of the mark. This is not to say it's not interesting - there are parts which I found fascinating. But it gives the distinct impression that the author did not have a well-defined audience in mind, or - if she meant it to be accessible to the general reader - she has not mastered the ability to write effectively for a non-specialist audience.
The problems manifest themselves in two main areas. First, the question of scope and organization. There is a definite sense that the author wants this to be a totally comprehensive account of the current state of knowledge. This is fine, but ultimately greatly increases the indigestibility of the book. The book's structure is unwieldy to the point where one wonders whether Viking actually had an editor read it. A "prelude", followed by an "introduction", leading in to a "prologue"? What were they thinking??? The sixteen chapters of the book follow an equally awkward organizational structure. Four are devoted to specific linguists (Chomsky, Pinker & Bloom...). Seven discuss specific features of human language, such as words and syntax, but are clumsily titled. For example, grouped under the blanket heading "If you have human language..." are the "chapters"
*You have something to talk about
*You have words
*You have gestures
*You have a human brain
The next three chapters are grouped under the heading "What evolves?", and are titled
*Species evolve
*Culture evolves
*Why things evolve
That the author finds it necessary to remind us that a human brain is a prerequisite for human language, or does not appear to recognize that "why things evolve" does not answer the question "what evolves?" are, of course, minor details. Nonetheless, these potentially distracting irritants could have been avoided, given a little more aggressive intervention by a professional editor.
The second major problem area - and it's a serious one - is in the author's style. It would be wrong of me to slam it completely here, there are paragraphs which I found delightful:
"Even though humans are more closely related to vervets than vervets are to chickens, it appears that vervets and chickens have converged upon a common tactic for survival. The forces that led them both to this strategy are powerful, but alarm calls were probably not bequeathed to them from a common ancestor. In fact, the most important thing that they share with all the other alarm-call-making animals is that they are small and delicious. Fitch explained: `The things that have alarm calls are little tiny guys who get eaten by lots of things, and the common ancestor of chimps and humans wasn't in that category. Humans don't have alarm calls, and apes don't have alarm calls. It's not that they don't have threats, but they don't have all these different threats where it pays to be able to refer very rapidly to aerial threat versus ground threat. Whether you're the Snickers bar of the Sahara or the Snickers bar of South Dakota, you're going to evolve alarm calls'".
Similarly, the opening `Prelude' to the book is a fluid, evocative tribute to the power, mystery, and magic of human language. Unfortunately, for every paragraph that soars, there are three that amount to nothing more than plodding, indescribably dry accounts of X's 2006 findings about gesturing in bonobos being a partial refutation of Y's 2004 study in vervets. We get it, Dr Kenneally, you know your stuff. What you haven't figured out how to do is to winnow through the assembled evidence and shape it into a reasonable narrative. Laying everything out there for the reader to sift through to find meaning is certainly one strategy for writing a book, but this is not the approach that makes the writing of your colleague Steven Pinker both edifying and fun to read. To reach a broader audience, an author needs to do better than this:
"The entropy level indicates the complexity of a signal, or how much information it might hold, such as the frequency of elements within the signal and the ability to make a prediction about what will come next in the signal, based on what has come before. Human languages are approximately ninth-order entropy, which means that if you had a nine-word (or shorter) sequence from, say, English, you would have a chance of guessing what might come next. If the sequence is ten words or more, you'll have no chance of guessing the next word correctly."
There are several problems with this paragraph. The second sentence is so vague as to be effectively meaningless ("a chance of guessing what might come next" - given even a random guess has some finite chance of being right, how big a chance are we talking about?). There's the unilluminating, apparently unnecessary insertion of `say, English'. But the real problem is that the combination of the second and third sentences don't really make any obvious sense. They certainly don't explain the concept of ninth-order entropy in an intelligible manner.
Another example. Early in Chapter 9, there is this sentence:
"Until very recently it was believed only we could understand or deploy any of the structural devices found in human syntax, but Kanzi showed that this is not entirely the case."
Sounds like Kanzi is an investigator in the field, and one proceeds, expecting to hear about the details of Kanzi's study. Well, no, it turns out that Kanzi is a bonobo we learned about in Chapter 2, with an amazing capacity for language. Clearly, Dr. Kenneally expects us to have remembered this. The problem is that the book is full of test animals across the spectrum, from bonobos to dolphins to crows to parrots, many of whom are introduced by name. The reader can be forgiven for not remembering that Betty is the tool-fashioning crow, not to be confused with Alex, the garrulous parrot (or his buddies Griffin and Arthur) or Elodie, the flirtatious elephant. Again, this may seem like a minor quibble, but it is indicative of the repeated failure of Dr Kenneally to be able to put herself in the place of a reader unfamiliar with the material being explained.
What is disappointing about these examples, and ultimately about the work as a whole, is the sense that, with stricter editing, this could have been a really fascinating book. As it is, it is an interesting book, but one which is very uneven, requiring the reader to slog through some fairly tedious, unilluminating material to find the good bits, written for the most part in a style which makes little concession to the non-expert.
Despite these reservations, I enjoyed the book. I think it doubtful that it will reach as wide an audience as does, for example, the work of Steven Pinker.
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