Product Description
Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: LanguageLanguage is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning?Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings.As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 29 reviews)

Fascinating and Intelligent by J. Murray (Laguna Hills, CA United States)

4 Stars
July 10, 2009
Dr. Deutscher has done a scholarly, thorough discussion on the roots of language, but I believe he started too late in time. I'm of the persuasion that language involves more than the spoken word. I find body language (which proponents argue communicate half of what we speak), facial expressions (think FACS, FBI, microexpressions), movement to be as telling of a person's intentions as words. Sometimes more so. Yet, he argues language was born when we could prove it was born--"...for how can anyone presume to know what went on in prehistoric times without indulging in make-believe?" "...impressive range of theories circulating for how the first words emerged: from shouts and calls; from hand gestures and sign language; from the ability to imitate...The point is that as long as there is no evidence, all these scenarios remain 'just so' stories." Or deductive reasoning. Something the modern brain excels at. This despite the fact that his cover includes the popular ape-man image. Still, he adds humor and a highly intelligent discussion I thoroughly enjoyed.

A book of stunning erudition by Ramesh Gopal (Albuquerque, NM United States)

5 Stars
May 29, 2009
I rarely give 5 stars, but occasionally I encounter a book of such stunning erudition that the commendation is deserved. The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher is one of those rare books that have the potential to open up a vast new field for mental exploration, or if the topic is already somewhat familiar, to completely change how you look at it. I would be the first to admit that I am new to linguistics and so everything here could already be well known to interested readers. That said, few books on advanced topics that are meant for general readers are so well written, comprehensive and thought provoking. This book surely stands apart. Why do some languages have such complicated case structures and verb conjugations? Why are some so irregular with so many exceptions to every rule? Why do English and Turkish arrange words in the opposite sequence in sentences? Why do Hebrew and Arabic have such a complex and remarkable system of verbs? Why do Indians often say that Sanskrit is the most precise of all languages? And finally, the fundamental question, how did language evolve? Deutscher tackles all these issues directly and draws on examples from languages as diverse as Tamil and Jemez. He explores the common origin of many currently very different languages in Proto-Indo-European. He compares language to an architectural achievement that has produced complex and magnificent structures capable of expressing every nuance of thought. Reading the book I could not help but think that language is more like life itself, with new species constantly arising, evolving and often declining. In Deutscher's metaphor processes of erosion and addition constantly hone language to the needs of each generation of speakers. Most of us recognize that sculpture, music, painting, not to mention science, have all become progressively more advanced over the millennia, apart from an occasional setback such as after the fall of the Greco-Roman world. Counter-intuitively, the opposite seems to have happened with language. Though our knowledge of the world is much more complex, our modern languages actually are simpler than the recorded languages of the ancient world like Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and even Gothic, as students of these languages know. Astonishingly, the few written records from the dawn of history 5000 years ago reveal fully developed languages with almost the full set of complex features of modern languages. In today's world primitive societies do not have simpler languages than industrialized societies. On the contrary, the opposite is likely to be true. These are some of the fascinating topics discussed in the book. Deutscher poses some hard questions when he sets out to explain how language developed, why old languages seem so much more complicated and how languages change over time. All these issues are addressed in a straightforward and organized fashion with enlightening, illustrative examples. This dazzling book was a joy to read.

Is language being created and destroyed in a constant cycle? by A. Panda (Guadalajara, Mexico)

5 Stars
May 21, 2009
Understandable, readable, but best of all, enjoyable explanation of the destructive and creative forces acting upon language. This book will convey you a "big picture" of the way how our present languages could have evolved into their present state and is mainly aimed at the interested layperson or at beginner students of linguistics, not for specialists (or maybe for those specialists that would like to read an overview of their science field from a humorful perspective). The destruction of language structures, as well as the creation of new ones is explained with very illustrative examples taken fom a wide variety of languages and from different historic periods. (Other reviewers have already explained the involved forces). Most 20th/21st century linguists believe that the same forces that acted on prehistoric languages should be the same forces at play now, so by observing present (or at least more or less recent) language changes we should be able to understand the forces that shaped our current languages. Creative changes are harder to observe than destructive ones, since it is easier to observe a present irregularity and look for its origin in the past (the action of a destructive force) than to look at something that looks regular now and imagine that sometime in the past it was irregular. Therefore, the only way to observe such creative processes is by noting an irregularity in some old text, which has somehow become regular in the present. This difficulty gave rise to the widespread idea among 19th century experts that language was only decaying. Although linguists have finally managed to observe some creative phenomena, these are not enough to compensate for the erosion that is evident in languages. Maybe written language and the existence of formal "grammar" and "ortography" are hindering or at least slowing down the creative processes. Linguists still do not know if this situation will lead us to a frightening erosion of meaning and structure in language (for example almost all noun cases existing in Proto-Indo-European, Latin and some Germanic languages are disappearing). Personally, I do not believe language will deteriorate to that point, since the very function of language (communicating meanings between individuals) would be threatened. Therefore, maybe we will reach some critical point and afterwards there will be a Cambric explosion of meaning and structure, it's a pity we will probably not witness this.

Understanding Language by A Reader (Kirkland, WA USA)

5 Stars
April 13, 2009
This is the best of several books I have read on how languages are derived. The expertise of the writer in many languages allowed him to give excellent examples of the development and degradation of languages during their life spans, and clearly explained many of the interesting and esoteric characteristics of languages, case endings and the double negative in French being two of the more eye-opening discussions.

Extraordinary Insight into the Making of Language by M. Heartsworn (Tel-Aviv Israel)

4 Stars
March 16, 2009
Convivial and enjoyable, the most remarkable aspect I found of The Unfolding of Language was that it made me look at the words I used and the words I heard differently. As someone who speaks fluent Hebrew, his discursions on Semitic languages were the easiest for me to understand and impressive in their clarity. The only drawback, it seemed to me after a while, wasthat his desire to be witty sometimes got the better of him -- and made the book drag in parts.

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