Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution - Hardcover

Lieberman, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393040895 ISBN 13: 9780393040890

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998

Synopsis

If we were to summon the first man and woman from their prehistoric graves, what would they―indeed, what could they―say to us?

The human imagination never ceases to be captivated by the quest for its own roots. Who were our ancestors? In the evolutionary clash of brains and brawn, what was it that prevailed and made us, Homo sapiens, uniquely human? Today scientists cite language as the distinctively human feature. But what is language―a sign, a grunt? a sound with collective symbolic meaning? This remarkable book seeks to set the record straight with a critical refinement of the language theory, providing us for the first time with a scientific explanation of how Eve came to speak at all.

Wrestling with the age-old question of why such a large gulf exists between humans and other animals, Philip Lieberman mines both the fossil record and modern neuroscientific techniques to chart the development of the anatomy and brain mechanisms necessary for human language as we know it. Eschewing any notion of a language gene or instinct, he pursues instead an evolutionary path in which environment acts on a biological capacity to reveal the interconnectedness of systems that make us most human: precise motor skills, speech, language, and complex thought. Eve Spoke challenges the dominant scientific theories of language's origins and forges a new understanding of the role of language in our evolution.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Lieberman is University Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University. He has written many books on the brain, evolution, and speech, and his photos are exhibited around the world.

Reviews

The debate over the origin of language shows little sign of cooling in this millennium. Contributing to the discourse, Lieberman (cognition and linguistics, Brown Univ.) examines both archaeological evidence and data derived from neurological imaging technology to bolster the "Eve hypothesis." According to Lieberman, Homo sapiens most likely evolved from an African ancestor about 150,000 years ago. A comparison of fossil vocal tracts (reconstructed from castings) with those of modern humans, moreover, suggests that the Neanderthals had limited capacity for speech and may thus have lost the selection battle to our more loquacious ancestors. Lieberman synthesizes a variety of research (including studies on Parkinson's disease and the effects of hypoxia on mountain climbers) to challenge Chomsky's Universal Grammar theory, most recently popularized in Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct (LJ 2/1/94). He argues that the "neural bases of human speech, motor control, and syntax appear to be linked together in a functional language system" characterized by "neural circuits" that are learned rather than transmitted as genetic blueprints. Lieberman's book is carefully reasoned and written with both clarity and a sense of adventure that will appeal to the general reader.?Laurie Bartolini, MacMurray Coll. Lib., Jacksonville, Ill.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393040895
• ISBN 13: 9780393040890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208