The Language Puzzle
Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved
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A top scholar reveals the most complete picture to date of how early human speech led to the languages we use today
The emergence of language began with the apelike calls of our earliest ancestors. Today, the world is home to thousands of complex languages. Yet exactly how, when, and why this evolution occurred has been one of the most enduring—and contentiously debated—questions in science.
In The Language Puzzle, renowned archaeologist Steven Mithen puts forward a groundbreaking new account of the origins of language. Scientists have gained new insights into the first humans of 2.8 million years ago, and how numerous species flourished but only one, Homo sapiens, survives today. Drawing from this work and synthesizing research across archaeology, psychology, linguistics, genetics, neuroscience, and more, Mithen details a step-by-step explanation of how our human ancestors transitioned from apelike calls to words, and from words to language as we use it today. He explores how language shaped our cognition and vice versa; how metaphor advanced Homo sapiens’ ability to formulate abstract concepts, develop agriculture, and—ultimately—shape the world. The result is a master narrative that builds bridges between disciplines, stuns with its breadth and depth, and spans millennia of societal development.
Deeply researched and brilliantly told, The Language Puzzle marks a seminal understanding of the evolution of language.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fascinating analysis, archaeologist Mithen (The Singing Neanderthals) chronicles human ancestors' progress from grunts and screams to jokes and poetry. Primate studies offer insight into the origins of language, Mithen contends, suggesting that chimpanzees' combination of grunts, barks, and other noises in predictable sequences might indicate primitive syntax. Tracing how the physical evolution of the brain, tongue, throat, and ears gave hominins more intelligence and articulate vocal tracts, Mithen argues that by one million years ago homo erectus was likely uttering "iconic words," whose sounds mimic features of the objects they describe ("Languages throughout the world use hard consonants for father, as in dad and pa, and soft, vowel-like consonants... for mother, as in mommy"). The Neanderthals developed bigger vocabularies and sentences governed by grammar, and were followed by homo sapiens, whose more sophisticated brains invented abstract words and metaphors that made language a font of cognitive creativity. In down-to-earth prose, Mithen weaves a wealth of genetic, linguistic, and paleoanthropological research into a coherent tapestry, with surprising revelations about Stone Age communication as well as present-day language. (Babies automatically process the frequency with which certain syllables follow each other to pick discrete words out of speech.) The result is a stimulating inquiry into the origins of language.
