Adam's Tongue by Derek Bickerton
How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans
This work argues that human language arose when early hominins entered a new ecological niche that required recruiting others to distant resources, forcing communication about things not immediately present (displaced reference). It proposes that simple word-like signals came first, used to coordinate scavenging and hunting, with grammar evolving later as pressures for precision and planning increased. Drawing on evidence from animal communication, child language, and creoles, it challenges gradualist and grooming-based theories, and claims that language then reshaped human cognition and society by enabling symbolic thought, cooperation, and culture.
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- Published
- 2009
- Nationality
- American
- Length
- Medium
- Pages
- 280-300
- Original Language
- English
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