Language and species - 57734

'Language and Species' presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language.

Drawing on 'living linguistic fossils' such as 'ape talk', the 'two-word' stage of small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive 'protolanguage' could have offered Homo erectus a novel ecological niche.

He goes on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into the languages we speak today.