Mother Tongue: How Humans Create Language

Presenting the latest and most controversial research on the origin of languages, the author of Mapping the Code discusses first language acquisition, idiot savants, language and stroke victims, and other issues. 15,000 first printing.

Drawing on research in several fields, science journalist Davis ( Defending the Body: Unraveling the Mysteries of Immunology ) offers an engaging, if diffuse, study of the history and science of language. He first investigates the definition of language and the development of language family trees, focusing on the intricate evolution of English from its Germanic origins to the introduction of Romance words and "the Great Vowel Shift" of the 15th century. After surveying phonetics and linguistics, he analyzes how the brain processes language; how we learn language--a second language actually takes up a different section of the brain than the first language learned; and finally looks at the biological roots of human language. Davis makes sophisticated information accessible, but he sacrifices depth for breadth. Illustrations not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Comprehensive report by veteran science writer Davis (Mapping the Code, 1990, etc.) on the glories and mysteries of language. Evidence that animals can talk is, Davis says, ``scant at best'': Language remains a distinctively human trait and perhaps our crowning achievement, and it may play a key role in the creation of the sense of an ``I,'' by which we know ourselves and the world. According to Davis, language is at least 100,000 years old, although its origins remain misty. We do know that all extant languages are equally complex (no so-called ``primitive'' language exists) and that all languages evolve--a process for which Davis uses English (the ``single most important spoken and written language'') as a fascinating case history, tracing how ``dramatic changes in vowel pronunciation'' turned Chaucer's English into the language spoken today. This sort of study arises from the blossoming of linguistics, which Davis traces from its origins in ancient Greece and India through the breakthrough work, in the 18th century, of Sir William Jones (who first noticed that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin are related) to the transformational grammar of Noam Chomsky, who perceives innate language structures in the mind. But minds require brains, and Davis explains in great detail how the brain stores and processes information, as well as how it produces language. It turns out that language abilities are spread throughout our gray matter and that, in multilingual people, different areas of the brain handle different languages. The stages of language acquisition in infants are also covered--from crying to gurgling to babbling to real talking (which begins at about one year). Seven appendices offer a bounty of language miscellany, from a pronunciation guide for phonetic symbols to a chart of Indo-European tongues. A first-rate overview of language from A to Z, and then some. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Davis begins with an entertaining history of English, then turns to an involved consideration of generative grammars. But he is the most intriguing in his prolonged discussion of the brain, which he likens to a computer because of its electrical activity--that is, plus and minus charges in the synapses of gray matter correspond to a computer's minute switches, embedded in silicon. Even an immensely powerful serial computer, however, is not nearly so complex, nor do brains process information linearly. Much of Davis' reportage draws upon Antonio and Hanna Damasio's work with "Boswell," a man whose brain was damaged by herpes simplex in such a way that the dysfunction in his language and motor capabilities yields clues about how the brain manufactures language. Davis concludes with a consideration of language learning in infants and a discussion of animal "speech." The communications of chimpanzees, while real, cannot be considered language, Davis says; the jury is still out with regard to whales and dolphins. A highly readable, up-to-the-minute summary of research. John Mort

Nothing seems so miraculous as the human infant's acquisition of language. Davis, author of Defending the Body ( LJ 5/1/89), examines the various aspects of language in this engrossing and informative book. Specifically, he charts the rise of our langauge from its Proto-Indo-European origins and then summarizes the mechanics of speech and the elements of language. He also presents a fascinating journey into the human brain that offers clues about the biological roots of language. Davis outlines key theories and research that demonstrate how language is created, stored, and retrieved in the brain. His comprehensive account is well organized and skillfully written, providing an excellent overview for the general reader. Highly recommended for public libraries.
- Laurie Bartolini, Lincoln Lib., Springfield, Ill.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.