How language evolved has been called “the hardest problem in science.” In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the conventional wisdom. Language is unique to humans, but it isn’t the only thing that sets us apart from other species—our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units—words—automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft. Written in Bickerton’s lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence. Derek Bickerton is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii. His most recent book, Bastard Tongues, was published in 2008. How language evolved has been called “the hardest problem in science.” In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the conventional wisdom.
Language is unique to humans, but it isn’t the only thing that sets us apart from other species—our cognitive powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units—words—automatically opened a new and different cognitive universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft.
Written in Bickerton’s lucid and irreverent style, this book is the first that thoroughly integrates the story of how language evolved with the story of how humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours could have come into existence. “The great puzzle of how human language evolved, and how it relates to animal communication, is tackled here with enthusiasm and directness by the always interesting Derek Bickerton. Being neither a complete gradualist nor a believer in Divine sparks, the author touches on all the issues and positions that are hotly debated today.”—Frans de Waal, Professor of Psychology, Emory University, and author of Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are “An intensely felt, sometimes very funny and occasionally deeply impolite take on what are fast becoming the classic case studies for language evolution.”—Christine Kenneally, New Scientist
“Derek Bickerton has long been a leading thinker concerning the evolution of language. In his latest book, Adam’s Tongue, Bickerton relishes his role as agent provocateur, offering witty demolitions of rival theories, admitting past errors, and providing an invigorating defense of the construction of ecological niches as the new grand truth for the theory of language evolution.”—Michael A. Arbib, Director, USC Brain Project, University of Southern California
“Bickerton skewers linguists, paleontologists, and animal behaviorists alike, reviews some of the currently popular neurobiological theories on language evolution, provides some mea culpa moments, and openly throws in a few just-so stories—and from this somewhat improbable mix comes a well-thought-out book, one that takes the reader logically through his arguments with wit and verve. Whether the reader eventually agrees with Bickerton’s thesis in its entirety or not, he or she will find the hours devoted to this book time well spent.”—Irene Pepperberg, Professor of Psychology, Brandeis University, and author of Alex and Me
“The great puzzle of how human language evolved, and how it relates to animal communication, is tackled here with enthusiasm and directness by the always interesting Derek Bickerton. Being neither a complete gradualist nor a believer in Divine sparks, the author touches on all the issues and positions that are hotly debated today.”—Frans de Waal, Professor of Psychology, Emory University, and author of Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
“Why is it that humans—and only humans—acquired language? Nobody knows for sure, but nobody has thought longer or harder about such questions than Derek Bickerton. A tour de force!”—Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology, New York University, and author of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
"In Adam’s Tongue, Bickerton proposes that human language developed about 2 million years ago as an evolutionary adaptation to hunting strategies. Bickerton’s theory of language evolution is disparate from that of any other linguistic scholar’s because he incorporates information from a range of disciplines instead of confining himself to one subject. Bickerton opens Adam’s Tongue by slowly warming his novice audience to the long and confusing history of the scientific study of language evolution. The perspective Bickerton presents in Adam’s Tongue is refreshing for an academic text . . . By far the most enthralling aspect of Bickerton’s book is not his theory of language evolution, but rather the metaphysical deconstruction of human conceptions of our role in evolution. We think we are unique, but isn’t every species? Isn’t uniqueness what constitutes a species? These are but two of the challenging questions that Bickerton discusses in artful ways. Throughout Adam’s Tongue, Bickerton reasserts the essence behind Darwinian evolution: There are no winners, and each species has adapted only insofar as evolutionary pressures have forced them. With that message looming in the background, Bickerton examines what forces caused humans to develop language. The answers found in Adam’s Tongue are by no means definitive; however, the realizations this book brings to the forefront are startlingly important."—Mary Lingwall, The Daily Texan
"Linguist Bickerton argues that our remote ancestors' cooperation in large-animal scavenging laid the groundwork for the capacities that evolved into language. As he has in previous books, the author quarrels with colleagues, constructs a number of what he justifiably calls 'just-so stories' to imagine what might have been in prehistory, employs a sometimes discordant mixture of just-plain-folks diction and
