About this item
In this interdisciplinary history of mankind's most incredible creation, a pioneering linguist masterfully traces the evolution of language across 60,000 generations. Mankind has a distinct advantage over all terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? In this sweeping history, How Language Began revolutionizes our understanding of the one tool that has allowed us to become the "lords of the planet." Debunking long-held theories across a spectrum of disciplines, Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's) , presents the stunning ideas that we are not born with an instinct for language and that the near seven thousand languages that exist today -- the product of one million years of evolution -- are the very basis of our own consciousness.
About the Author
Dan Everett (1951) was born in Holtville, California. He worked in the Amazon jungles of Brazil for over 30 years, among more than one dozen different tribal groups. He is best-known for his long-term work on the Pirahã language. He has published more than 100 articles, as well as 13 books on linguistic theory, life in the Amazon, and the description of endangered Amazonian languages. His book, Don't sleep, there are snakes: life and language in the Amazonian jungle (Pantheon) , was selected by National Public Radio as one of the best books of 2009 in the US, by Blackwell's bookstores as one of the best of 2009 in the UK , and was an 'editor's choice' of the London Sunday Times. It was also a featured BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. His book, Language: The cultural tool (Pantheon) , was a New York Times Editor's Choice . His book from the University of Chicago Press is: Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious. In this book, whose primary audience is intended to be professional cognitive scientists (especially anthropologists and linguists) , he develops a theory of tacit knowledge and culture that proposes a model of embodied empiricism. His next book, How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention, published by Liveright Publishers (US) and Profile Books (UK) , is due out August 2017. A documentary of his life and work, The Grammar of Happiness, was released worldwide in 2012. It is available through the Smithsonian Channel in the USA. The Grammar of Happiness has now won first prize for Human Sciences at the Jackson Hole Film Festival. It won the Young Europeans Jury Award at the FIPA Film Festival in Biarritz, France. It is a finalist for best science film of 2012 at the Pariscience Film Festival.A play based on Everett's life, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes, premiered in London in the spring of 2016. Another piece of performance art based on Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes, was performed in Berlin, also in late spring 2016. Everett is currently Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
