[PDF] Inquiries Into The Origin Of Language eBook

Author : Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 43,66 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780198238218

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Proposing a theory of the origins of human language ability and presenting an account of the early evolution of language, this text explains why humans are the only language-using animals and challenges the assumption that language is due to intelligence-- jacket cover.

Author : Steven Roger Fischer
Publisher : Reaktion Books
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 17,15 MB
Release : 2004-10-03
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1861895941

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It is tempting to take the tremendous rate of contemporary linguistic change for granted. What is required, in fact, is a radical reinterpretation of what language is. Steven Roger Fischer begins his book with an examination of the modes of communication used by dolphins, birds and primates as the first contexts in which the concept of "language" might be applied. As he charts the history of language from the times of Homo erectus, Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens through to the nineteenth century, when the science of linguistics was developed, Fischer analyses the emergence of language as a science and its development as a written form. He considers the rise of pidgin, creole, jargon and slang, as well as the effects radio and television, propaganda, advertising and the media are having on language today. Looking to the future, he shows how electronic media will continue to reshape and re-invent the ways in which we communicate. "[a] delightful and unexpectedly accessible book ... a virtuoso tour of the linguistic world."—The Economist "... few who read this remarkable study will regard language in quite the same way again."—The Good Book Guide

Author : Jean Aitchison
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 47,47 MB
Release : 2000-05-04
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780521785716

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Clear and non-technical overview of the history of language development by popular author. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Author : Merritt Ruhlen
Publisher : Gorgias Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 34,49 MB
Release : 2023
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781463244965

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This book, The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue, originally published in 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, was written in a more popular style, accessible to an educated general audience, than the more scholarly and academic tome of a similar title, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy, published the same year. In The Origin of Language Ruhlen laid out the principles of linguistic genetic classification, i.e., classifying languages into families according to common origins rather than typological features. Ruhlen showed how simple this can be, especially for languages that have diverged for a few millennia, by juxtaposing short lists of basic (non-cultural) words like eye, fire, and tongue. He also showed that the same methods can be used to postulate older and deeper families, often called "macro-families" or "macrophyla," by comparing reconstructed forms from lower-level families. Such deeper families (e.g., Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Nilo-Saharan, Austric) are generally more controversial than lower-level families, but Ruhlen did not shy from discussing them if he thought the evidence supported them. Ruhlen was also interested in other fields of anthropology, such as archaeology and human genetics, and brought these fields into play.