The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution (Canto)

by JeanAitchison (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2000

  $25.68

  Human language is a weird communication system: it has more in common with birdsong than with the calls of other primates. In this wide-ranging and accessible overview, first published in 2000, Jean Aitchison explores the origins of human language and how it has evolved. She likens the search to a vast pre-historic jigsaw puzzle, in which numerous fragments of evidence must be assembled. Such evidence is pieced together from a mixture of linguistic and non-linguistic sources like evolution theory, archaeology, psychology, and anthropology. She explains why language is so strange, outlines recent theories about its origin, and discusses possible paths of evolution. Finally, Jean Aitchison considers what holds all languages together and prevents them from becoming unlearnably different from one another. The Seeds of Speech is a fascinating book that will appeal to everyone who is interested in the origins and evolution of human language, including linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, archaeologists, and the general reader.

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.27

  Human language is a weird communication system: it has more in common with birdsong than the calls of other primates. In this clear and non-technical overview, Jean Aitchison explores why it evolved and how it developed. She likens the search to a vast prehistoric jigsaw puzzle, in which numerous fragments of evidence must be assembled, some external to language, such as evolution theory, animal communication; others internal, including child language, pidgins and creoles, and language change. She explains why language is so strange, outlines recent theories about its origin, and discusses possible paths of evolution. Jean Aitchison is the Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University. She gave the 1996 BBC Reith lectures The Language Web.