February 2006    

The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved Author: Robbins Burling Publisher: Oxford University Press $30.00 Cloth (286 p.) ISBN: 0199279403 B&T         YBP The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention Author: Guy Deutscher Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt $26.00 Cloth (358 p.) ISBN: 0805079076 B&T         YBP Reviewed by Jim Roberts, Book Processing While both men attempt to answer the same question - "Where did language come from?" - their methods and starting point differ dramatically. Burling, a trained anthropologist and linguist, starts with the motions and sounds of animals, compares them to our motions and sounds, and places them in a grid according to how learned or innate they are on the one side, and how iconic or abstract they are on the other. Smiling is an innate way for humans to show pleasure, but it's fairly abstract. He refers to smiles as "gesture-calls," as opposed to "quotable gestures," such as the "head screw" sign. In any culture where it can be understood, pointing the index finger at the temple and making swirling motions denotes that you think someone's mentally imbalanced, and can't mean much else. Burling develops these categories of symbols, along with many others, including the icons of human interaction, like sign language and alphanumeric symbols, and provides considerable evidence that these symbol-sets evolved naturally into language, not because of a desire to communicate, but rather out of a desire to understand. It's a simple enough idea, but most books on the evolution of language tend to focus on the increasing complexity of speech, more or less assuming that the mind is keeping up with it. Burling argues, and argues quite convincingly, that it is our ability to understand forms of communication of increasing complexity that drives the continuing evolution of language. In the later chapters he takes this concept and discusses how and when comprehension of spoken language would have proved useful, and why spoken words are more useful than a gesture-based language. He talks about the evolution of linguistic capacity from an anthropologist's point of view and never discusses the neurophysiology of it, but that's likely for the best. Such matters are quite complicated, and it's enough that the book is best read by someone familiar with anthropology and linguistics without stacking life sciences on top of it. He also does a top-notch job from his anthropological stance, so it's ultimately unnecessary as well. Deutscher picks up where Burling leaves off, discussing the evolution of language from the point where all the major elements of grammar, structure and syntax are already in place and showing how those ancient languages evolved into the modern. Initially he seems quite dismissive of language's pre-grammar state, but he spends the last chapter of the book showing the evolution of what he calls "me Tarzan" speech. His chief interest is in showing that language was not created, that it is not an invention, but something that grew from a desire to communicate into the systems we have today. The book's most useful information is in the chapters defending the recent progress of language. A number of people, including linguists, believe that language is slowly degrading, falling into less and less complicated patterns. Deutscher argues forcefully and well against this theory of language entropy, not the least because, as he points out, this theory is at least two thousand years old. Next-best are the appendices, five of them, each discusses some element he brought up earlier in the book but didn't want to veer aside to tackle directly. He's particularly good in the chapters where he's able to reference the Semitic verb and noun systems, which, while rather complicated, are his specialty. With the scant familiarity I have with Semitic languages, I found him quite easy to understand in these passages. Of the two writers, Deutscher is the more entertaining and accessible, working humour into his examples and an obvious love of language into every paragraph. This isn't just another pop book on language, though. He has copious endnotes from some leading publications and does an excellent job of bringing together a number of ideas into one book without creating confusion. Much of this is thanks to the copious graphs, lists, charts and illustrations. Each serves a purpose: either introducing a new point or helping to explain one already made. Burling's book is shorter, but considerably more dense and academic. He uses some fairly complicated terms without offering definition or explanation, assuming that the reader can either find the term elsewhere or already knows it fairly well. He also introduces some specialized terms of his own devising that are based on existing theories. Burling tackles more abstract concepts in his book, but his layers of theories are up to the task. Where the two authors come together is in taking a distance from Chomsky's theory that grammar and language are bound in our DNA and are not learned behaviour. Burling takes the line that while our brains are clearly designed to learn language, there are too many differences in phonology and syntax for it to be entirely a genetic trait. Deutscher distances himself further from the whole affair, but does so because the debate is so contentious and argumentative that discussing it would not serve his book well. Both books are excellent at introducing readers to new ideas and would serve well in the library of the armchair linguist or on the desktop of someone teaching undergraduate courses on language. They aren't reference material, but both writers are skilled enough at their craft that they often sum up a complex idea in a pithy way that will have you reaching for the highlighter. Published by YBP Library Services 999 Maple St., Contoocook, NH 03229 USA v: 800.258.3774   f: 603.746.5628 w: www.ybp.com   e: academia@ybp.com All rights reserved.