Eve Spoke (Hb): Human Language and Human Evolution

Philip Lieberman

ISBN 10: 0330338242 / ISBN 13: 9780330338240

Published by Picador, 1998

About this Item

Type: Book Plain label inside cover.

Seller Inventory # 051404

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Eve Spoke (Hb): Human Language and Human Evolution
• Publisher: Picador
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0330338242
• ISBN 13: 9780330338240
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 13 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • LINGUISTICS

About this title

Synopsis

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 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.