Language

January 9, 2012
Is language a genetically programmed instinct or something we pick up from the culture around us? This central controversy in linguistics and philosophy is roiled in this unfocused but stimulating treatise. Challenging Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, and other partisans of “nativism,” which holds that certain kinds of knowledge are hard-wired into us (e.g., Chomsky’s “universal grammar” underlying all languages), linguist Everett (Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes) argues that language is a practical tool for communicating and social bonding, determined by cultural needs and the practicalities of information sharing, that children learn through general intelligence. His sketchy, disorganized treatment touches on neuroscience, linguistics, and information theory; most tellingly, he spotlights nativists’ failure to demonstrate that any meaningful universal grammar exists. Along the way, Everett regales readers with the quirks of the Amazonian Indian languages and cultures he studies—some have no words for numbers or colors—in anecdotes that are sometimes cogent but often just colorful. Everett’s rambling, overstuffed exposition often loses its thread, and his discussion of cultural influences on language can be more truistic than incisive. Still, readers who hack through the undergrowth will find a compelling riposte to the reigning orthodoxies in linguistics. Photos.

January 15, 2012
Everett (Dean of Arts and Sciences/Bentley Univ.; Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazon Jungle, 2008, etc.) challenges Noam Chomsky, arguing that grammar and language are learned. The author begins and ends with images of fire, calling language "the cognitive fire." After some obligatory comments about how he intends to be fair with his opponents, he soars off into his thesis about how language is a tool--one that we acquire rather than inherit genetically, rather like a bow and arrow. Throughout, Everett endeavors to leaven his otherwise heavy narrative with anecdotes (especially about his years living with the Amazonian Piraha) and with allusions to music and to popular culture--among others, he looks at Phil Spector, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Mick Jagger and the Lone Ranger and Tonto. The author dismisses the idea that there's a "language gene," and he explains linguistic terms like Zipf's Law, discreteness, contingency and recursion. He finds ways to chip chinks in Chomsky's armor and dives gleefully into the controversy surrounding Benjamin Whorf, who maintained that our languages circumscribe our thoughts. Everett closely examines the Piraha, noting that they have no words for numbers or colors, but mothers nonetheless know how many children they have. He pauses now and then for more extensive explanations of related topics, like cross-cultural ideas of kinship, noting that our (American) terms for first and second cousin (and the notion of "removed") are disappearing because we no longer use them. The author grieves at the loss of any language, takes a shot or two at public schools for their failure to teach about dialects and notes how each language makes its speakers happy. Readers' eyes will sometimes sparkle with new insight, sometimes glaze at the dense exposition.

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February 15, 2012
Everett once believed that language, like a muscle or an eye, manifests the biological powers inherent in the human genome. But after decades of intense linguistic study, much of it fieldwork among the Piraha of the Amazon Basin, he now espouses a different view, namely, that language, like music or silverware, originated as an invention of creatures who venture far beyond genetic inevitability. Readers who hold out for biologically oriented accounts of language must confront a wealth of linguistic evidence showing that society shapes language and that language in turn shapes society. Everett shows, for instance, how the Piraha use their phonetic system to define gender boundaries, while Anglos use their distinctive lexicon to safeguard personal liberty. Even grammar, as it turns out, reflects varying cultural imperatives. Connecting Aristotle's musings upon man's social instinct with modern social scientists' probings into the evolutionary dynamics of syntactical hierarchy, Everett unfolds a compelling analysis of how language informs all the activities we recognize as distinctively human. A linguistic study certain to attract many general readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)