The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World

A preeminent researcher in language acquisition draws on cutting-edge scientific findings to address key issues about language development, demonstrating how human beings are born with an innate ability to speak any language but customize their communication abilities to accommodate the language that they hear, in an account that also explores the sources of grammatical rules. 35,000 first printing.

Charles Yang teaches linguistics and psychology at Yale University. Trained as a computer scientist at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he has written extensively on children and language and contributes articles to The London Review of Books, among other literary publications. He lives in Delaware with his wife, a frequent research collaborator, and young son, a frequent research subject.