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The Story of Human Language
alternate cover edition for ASIN B00DTO69D6
Listening length: 18 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher's summary: Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct. Now you can explore all of these questions and more in an in-depth series of 36 lectures from one of America's leading linguists.
You'll be witness to the development of human language, learning how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today and gaining an appreciation of the remarkable ways in which one language sheds light on another.
The many fascinating topics you examine in these lectures include: the intriguing evidence that links a specific gene to the ability to use language; the specific mechanisms responsible for language change; language families and the heated debate over the first language; the phenomenon of language mixture; why some languages develop more grammatical machinery than they actually need; the famous hypothesis that says our grammars channel how we think; artificial languages, including Esperanto and sign languages for the deaf; and how word histories reflect the phenomena of language change and mixture worldwide.
Listening length: 18 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher's summary: Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct. Now you can explore all of these questions and more in an in-depth series of 36 lectures from one of America's leading linguists.
You'll be witness to the development of human language, learning how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today and gaining an appreciation of the remarkable ways in which one language sheds light on another.
The many fascinating topics you examine in these lectures include: the intriguing evidence that links a specific gene to the ability to use language; the specific mechanisms responsible for language change; language families and the heated debate over the first language; the phenomenon of language mixture; why some languages develop more grammatical machinery than they actually need; the famous hypothesis that says our grammars channel how we think; artificial languages, including Esperanto and sign languages for the deaf; and how word histories reflect the phenomena of language change and mixture worldwide.
19 pages, Audible Audio
First published January 1, 2004
208 people are currently reading
4049 people want to read
About the author
John McWhorter
47 books1,713 followersJohn Hamilton McWhorter (Professor McWhorter uses neither his title nor his middle initial as an author) is an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy, and music history. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His research specializes on how creole languages form, and how language grammars change as the result of sociohistorical phenomena.
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 376 reviews
February 17, 2025
Another fun lecture from McWhorter.
John McWhorter pulled me in with his lecture style when I listened to Ancient Writing and the History of the Alphabet and now I'm grabbing up his stuff as fast as I can.
I'm not a linguist. Sadly, I'm not even bilingual.
But that didn't stop me from enjoying McWhorter's romp through the progression of human languages. I feel like I learned SO much through this lecture. It's one of those subjects that opens up more than you think it will at first glance. I've been completely obnoxious around the house for weeks harassing my family with all the tidbits I learned. I know they're annoyed at this point because they scurry to look busy when they see me coming.
I can't even begin to list all the cool things he covered. Just know that there are cool things, he covered them, and you should 100% give this one a listen.
One of the things I found interesting was that we don't speak in the same way that we write - or are told to write, at least. We stop abruptly. Start with conjunctions, end with prepositions, and just run on those sentences like crazy. And that's exactly what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to drop the endings and change the way the words sound. It's not messing anything up, it's progressing language.
Language is evolution, not a set of laws.
This made me rethink everything I thought I knew about proper grammar. But to be fair, I've been butchering it for years, just without realizing it was ok to do it.
Kudos to me!
I will absolutely be encouraging everyone to listen to this one.
Highly Recommended.
John McWhorter pulled me in with his lecture style when I listened to Ancient Writing and the History of the Alphabet and now I'm grabbing up his stuff as fast as I can.
I'm not a linguist. Sadly, I'm not even bilingual.
But that didn't stop me from enjoying McWhorter's romp through the progression of human languages. I feel like I learned SO much through this lecture. It's one of those subjects that opens up more than you think it will at first glance. I've been completely obnoxious around the house for weeks harassing my family with all the tidbits I learned. I know they're annoyed at this point because they scurry to look busy when they see me coming.
I can't even begin to list all the cool things he covered. Just know that there are cool things, he covered them, and you should 100% give this one a listen.
One of the things I found interesting was that we don't speak in the same way that we write - or are told to write, at least. We stop abruptly. Start with conjunctions, end with prepositions, and just run on those sentences like crazy. And that's exactly what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to drop the endings and change the way the words sound. It's not messing anything up, it's progressing language.
Language is evolution, not a set of laws.
This made me rethink everything I thought I knew about proper grammar. But to be fair, I've been butchering it for years, just without realizing it was ok to do it.
Kudos to me!
I will absolutely be encouraging everyone to listen to this one.
Highly Recommended.
April 22, 2018
I'm hoping this is more about words than it is about the production of them, Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language, my last book, was really not. *Fricatives, bilabials and vocoids, are not anything like as interesting as cognates, dialects and creoles. A cognate is the same word in different languages that relates to the original language. I am also interested in why we use peculiar words that no other language uses. An example is "Do". Do you want to, are you going to do... Other languages get by saying what the issue is and not bothering with do. I like all that. Looking forward to a good read!
*Fricatives are consonants, f, s, v, z and sounds like the ch of Bach, the Ll of Llanwern. Bilabials are p, b and m - where both lips are used to produce the sound. Vocoids are common-or-garden vowels. See I did learn something!
*Fricatives are consonants, f, s, v, z and sounds like the ch of Bach, the Ll of Llanwern. Bilabials are p, b and m - where both lips are used to produce the sound. Vocoids are common-or-garden vowels. See I did learn something!
March 30, 2017
Human language is a fascinating subject. We don't appreciate how complex language speaking skills are until we try to learn a new language as adults. It's one thing that children can do better than adults. Brain studies suggest that human brains are uniquely programmed to use language, and children's brains are uniquely adept at learning languages. This adeptness is lost as we age.
The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter is a collection of thirty-six lectures on the history and study of human languages. It includes some discussion of the tools used by linguists. However, I see that there's a whole separate set of lectures on "Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language." I haven't listened to this other set of lectures so I'm not sure how they differ. Presumably these lectures (Story of Human Language) has more focus on history and less emphasis on the technical aspects of linguistics.
Some things I've learned that I find interesting:
1. Differences in languages can be used much like gene technology to track prehistoric movements of humans. Changes in languages occur more quickly than changes in human genes, so whereas genes may be used to indicate humans migrations over a span of 100,000 years, language can indicate movements over the past 10,000 years.
2. Ninety-nine percent of the words in the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language are from sources other than Old-English. However, Sixty-five percent of the commonly used words are part of the one percent that comes from Old-English.
3. The most complex and difficult languages are spoken in areas that are isolated from exposure to other languages. In other words, primitive peoples sometimes have very complex languages. Languages can become complex when everybody who speaks the language learned it as a child.
4. More widely spoken languages that need to be learned by adult speakers of other languages tend to become simplified over time.
5. Languages tend to either (1) have prefixes and case endings, or (2) be tonal. They seldom have both. (But there are exceptions.)
6. The majority of the world's languages do not have definite and indefinite articles (i.e. a, an, the). Speakers of European languages can't believe it to be possible to speak without them.
7. The majority of the world's population (including much of Europe) speak a different dialect (i.e. local vernacular) of their language at home than what is taught in their schools or used in official government business. This phenomenon is called diglossia. Americans are unique in having relatively little diglossia.
8. We can thank the influence of the invading Norsemen of the 9th century for the fact that English is the only European language that doesn't have gender markers for inanimate objects. (Thank you, Norsemen.) Other invaders who didn't learn Old English well were probably responsible for the simplified verb conjugations in English. (Thank you other invaders.)
9. Non-phonetic English word spellings are a remnant of an earlier time when they were phonetic. Unfortunately, word spellings change more slowly than the spoken language. The development of printing has essentially fossilized spelling conventions. (Thank goodness for computerized spell-check.)
The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter is a collection of thirty-six lectures on the history and study of human languages. It includes some discussion of the tools used by linguists. However, I see that there's a whole separate set of lectures on "Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language." I haven't listened to this other set of lectures so I'm not sure how they differ. Presumably these lectures (Story of Human Language) has more focus on history and less emphasis on the technical aspects of linguistics.
Some things I've learned that I find interesting:
1. Differences in languages can be used much like gene technology to track prehistoric movements of humans. Changes in languages occur more quickly than changes in human genes, so whereas genes may be used to indicate humans migrations over a span of 100,000 years, language can indicate movements over the past 10,000 years.
2. Ninety-nine percent of the words in the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language are from sources other than Old-English. However, Sixty-five percent of the commonly used words are part of the one percent that comes from Old-English.
3. The most complex and difficult languages are spoken in areas that are isolated from exposure to other languages. In other words, primitive peoples sometimes have very complex languages. Languages can become complex when everybody who speaks the language learned it as a child.
4. More widely spoken languages that need to be learned by adult speakers of other languages tend to become simplified over time.
5. Languages tend to either (1) have prefixes and case endings, or (2) be tonal. They seldom have both. (But there are exceptions.)
6. The majority of the world's languages do not have definite and indefinite articles (i.e. a, an, the). Speakers of European languages can't believe it to be possible to speak without them.
7. The majority of the world's population (including much of Europe) speak a different dialect (i.e. local vernacular) of their language at home than what is taught in their schools or used in official government business. This phenomenon is called diglossia. Americans are unique in having relatively little diglossia.
8. We can thank the influence of the invading Norsemen of the 9th century for the fact that English is the only European language that doesn't have gender markers for inanimate objects. (Thank you, Norsemen.) Other invaders who didn't learn Old English well were probably responsible for the simplified verb conjugations in English. (Thank you other invaders.)
9. Non-phonetic English word spellings are a remnant of an earlier time when they were phonetic. Unfortunately, word spellings change more slowly than the spoken language. The development of printing has essentially fossilized spelling conventions. (Thank goodness for computerized spell-check.)
January 21, 2016
(I'm cheating a bit by saying I "read" this. Actually, I listened to the 18.2 hours of audio lectures that accompany this book in a set. This is a product of The Teaching Company.)
McWhorter is brilliant, just brilliant. A fantastic communicator. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series, and it didn't hurt that he had me frequently chuckling at his cleverness.
As to substance, McWhorter knows what he's talking about. The changes languages go through—and especially the narrower topic of creoles—are his area of expertise, but that certainly does not exhaust his knowledge. Topics he addressed include "Language Families," "Dialects: Where Do You Draw the Line?," "Language Death," "Artificial Languages," even a topic he may be uniquely situated to address, "What Is Black English?"
McWhorter provided memorable illustrations, like his cat nosing into his empty suitcase as an analogy for how language develops unnecessary complications over time. He took time out to weigh the good and the (mostly) bad in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He made fruitful application of the continuum idea, showing that the line between dialect and creole is not hard and fast.
I would consider this a pretty ideal intro to linguistics for laypeople, and it will contain a lot of food for thought for those who, like me, have already done a fair amount of reading in the area but who aren't professionals.
For biblical scholars, it seems to me that James Barr (and Moisés Silva and Stanley Porter) are still right to say that we ignore linguistics to our peril. We're supposed to be people of the Word, so we must necessarily be people who understand words.
McWhorter is brilliant, just brilliant. A fantastic communicator. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series, and it didn't hurt that he had me frequently chuckling at his cleverness.
As to substance, McWhorter knows what he's talking about. The changes languages go through—and especially the narrower topic of creoles—are his area of expertise, but that certainly does not exhaust his knowledge. Topics he addressed include "Language Families," "Dialects: Where Do You Draw the Line?," "Language Death," "Artificial Languages," even a topic he may be uniquely situated to address, "What Is Black English?"
McWhorter provided memorable illustrations, like his cat nosing into his empty suitcase as an analogy for how language develops unnecessary complications over time. He took time out to weigh the good and the (mostly) bad in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He made fruitful application of the continuum idea, showing that the line between dialect and creole is not hard and fast.
I would consider this a pretty ideal intro to linguistics for laypeople, and it will contain a lot of food for thought for those who, like me, have already done a fair amount of reading in the area but who aren't professionals.
For biblical scholars, it seems to me that James Barr (and Moisés Silva and Stanley Porter) are still right to say that we ignore linguistics to our peril. We're supposed to be people of the Word, so we must necessarily be people who understand words.
September 16, 2025
دورهای بی نظیر در مورد زبانشناسی. تاریخچۀ شکلگیری، رشد و تحول زبانها، و در نهایت مرگ زبانها رو تعریف کرد. بی اندازه جذاب و آموزنده بود.
November 3, 2023
With some recommendations I stumbled across this book on human language from The Great Courses. This is an audiobook, aka the lecture series by the author.
Here is what it‘s all about:
“There are 6,000 languages in the world, in so much variety that many languages would leave English speakers wondering just how a human being could possibly learn and use them.“
(From the scope of the book / pdf supplement of the audio)
The first two lectures were What Is Language? and When Language Began. By the sound of it this seem to be actual lectures. There are reactions from the audience and clapping. It makes for a different listening experience than listening to a professionally narrated book. The author, aka lecturer, is a proficient and coherent speaker. However, the experience is a bit more organic than usual.
The part about Chomsky in the second lecture was new to me and the notion that humans are somehow programmed to speak sounded logical to me. The other side of that argument is, that language develops based on external influences. Here we open the door to philosophical debate. I am benching that one for my next non-fiction book...
“The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in biolinguistics, the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited.
Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species.“
(from Wikipedia about Chomsky)
Lecture 3: How Language Changes—Sound Change talks about the great vowel shift — I opened the pdf that came with the audio. It‘s not the full text, more of a summary, but still... reading along and looking at some of the examples in writing is very helpful. Pretty cool, actually, how vowels and consonants changed over time. That word, „cool“, had a vowel shift, btw...
I won‘t bore you with summaries of every single lecture, suffice to say that the author covers a vast amount of linguistic topics. I spaced out a bit during the many chapters on dialects.
The author‘s casual dismissal of places and people outside of the US was a bit irritating at times. I think he was trying to be funny, with middling success.
Lecture 26: Does Culture Drive Language Change? presents “a hypothesis that our ways of processing the world are channeled by the structure of our language. This has been called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.“
That has always been a really fascinating concept for me. German, language of thinkers and poets, etc. Based on this audiobook course and other sources I looked at over time, this does not seem to hold true. The language you think in or the grammar you use do not seem to shape how you think and do not seem to be influenced by the culture you live in. Although it has never been proven, the idea doesn‘t seem to be going away.
In the chapters after that one we learned about Pidgin and Creole. There is a difference! I did not know that. And I learned a lot more about it than I really cared for. However, a lot of that was grounding for Lecture 32: What Is Black English? Fascinating connection to British English!
Everything was rounded off with a master class, to extrapolate on everything we learned throughout the course.
It was interesting, even with some bits in between that dragged a bit. The accompanying pdf was open most of the time, while I listened to the lectures and served a bit as a blackboard for the lecturer. Good enough to consider further offerings by The Great Courses.
+*+*+
Some of the recommended reading:
- The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way — I‘ve read this and liked it.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies — I keep looking at this book. One of these days I will finally get and read it!
+*+*+
This was part of my #ReadPOC2021 challenge. The February prompt is „scientist“:
https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2021/0...
Here is what it‘s all about:
“There are 6,000 languages in the world, in so much variety that many languages would leave English speakers wondering just how a human being could possibly learn and use them.“
(From the scope of the book / pdf supplement of the audio)
The first two lectures were What Is Language? and When Language Began. By the sound of it this seem to be actual lectures. There are reactions from the audience and clapping. It makes for a different listening experience than listening to a professionally narrated book. The author, aka lecturer, is a proficient and coherent speaker. However, the experience is a bit more organic than usual.
The part about Chomsky in the second lecture was new to me and the notion that humans are somehow programmed to speak sounded logical to me. The other side of that argument is, that language develops based on external influences. Here we open the door to philosophical debate. I am benching that one for my next non-fiction book...
“The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in biolinguistics, the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited.
Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species.“
(from Wikipedia about Chomsky)
Lecture 3: How Language Changes—Sound Change talks about the great vowel shift — I opened the pdf that came with the audio. It‘s not the full text, more of a summary, but still... reading along and looking at some of the examples in writing is very helpful. Pretty cool, actually, how vowels and consonants changed over time. That word, „cool“, had a vowel shift, btw...
I won‘t bore you with summaries of every single lecture, suffice to say that the author covers a vast amount of linguistic topics. I spaced out a bit during the many chapters on dialects.
The author‘s casual dismissal of places and people outside of the US was a bit irritating at times. I think he was trying to be funny, with middling success.
Lecture 26: Does Culture Drive Language Change? presents “a hypothesis that our ways of processing the world are channeled by the structure of our language. This has been called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.“
That has always been a really fascinating concept for me. German, language of thinkers and poets, etc. Based on this audiobook course and other sources I looked at over time, this does not seem to hold true. The language you think in or the grammar you use do not seem to shape how you think and do not seem to be influenced by the culture you live in. Although it has never been proven, the idea doesn‘t seem to be going away.
In the chapters after that one we learned about Pidgin and Creole. There is a difference! I did not know that. And I learned a lot more about it than I really cared for. However, a lot of that was grounding for Lecture 32: What Is Black English? Fascinating connection to British English!
Everything was rounded off with a master class, to extrapolate on everything we learned throughout the course.
It was interesting, even with some bits in between that dragged a bit. The accompanying pdf was open most of the time, while I listened to the lectures and served a bit as a blackboard for the lecturer. Good enough to consider further offerings by The Great Courses.
+*+*+
Some of the recommended reading:
- The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way — I‘ve read this and liked it.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies — I keep looking at this book. One of these days I will finally get and read it!
+*+*+
This was part of my #ReadPOC2021 challenge. The February prompt is „scientist“:
https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2021/0...
November 19, 2019
An interesting overview of the language development, passing throw the world’s first language, dialects, language mixture, pidgins and creoles. Overall, the content is engagingly exposed.
However, John McWhorter loses himself in speculative and denigrating details towards some cultures. That lead to indicate that probably the research work behind the course might be lacking a revision.
However, John McWhorter loses himself in speculative and denigrating details towards some cultures. That lead to indicate that probably the research work behind the course might be lacking a revision.
September 30, 2022
I only made it 2% into this Great Courses Series Audio Book before the author said two things that aren't true. He stated that dogs cannot choke due to the high position of their larynx, and there is no way to give them the Heimlich Maneuver if they did. Dogs do choke. Dog owners know that, and their is a version of the Heimlich Maneuver specifically designed to be performed on canines. Many vets can teach it. I know it and I have a downloadable diagram posted at my home first aid center.
The professor's second erroneous statement can be attributed to his human centric bias. He repeats the claim that no apes, once taught sign language have ever used it with their own kind, making it a party trick, not language to them. According to a 1985 article in The Washington Post signing chimpanzees have been observed teaching sign language to each other and using it to communicate.
After such glaringly prejudicial errors I felt it was not worth my quilt to continue with this course.
I think animals are animals and humans are humans, but just as we we have made errors in how we interpreted animal pain responses and emotional responses in the past, we are erring when we underestimate the role animals play in our language and communication development.
The professor's second erroneous statement can be attributed to his human centric bias. He repeats the claim that no apes, once taught sign language have ever used it with their own kind, making it a party trick, not language to them. According to a 1985 article in The Washington Post signing chimpanzees have been observed teaching sign language to each other and using it to communicate.
After such glaringly prejudicial errors I felt it was not worth my quilt to continue with this course.
I think animals are animals and humans are humans, but just as we we have made errors in how we interpreted animal pain responses and emotional responses in the past, we are erring when we underestimate the role animals play in our language and communication development.
June 10, 2020
Highly informative, engaging, and extremely easy to follow. The lecture series focused on how and why language is different around the world and how it changed over time. It is a longer series than most but it flew by.
March 29, 2016
The lecturer made a lot of jokes. Some of them were funny, some not and some were outright insulting. Let's start with some obvious ones. Please don't make jokes about slavery. That is not okay. And use words like "negro" only if you have a direct historical quote or historical instance you are referring to.
This was also way too long, and repetitive. The same things were told over and over again.
And even though I am not a linguist and I only listen to these because I have boring hobbies, I could still find several mistakes. Mostly considering Finnish and Scandinavian languages, since those happen to be the ones I'm most familiar with.
The lecturer also said, that it is not possible to have a language that would have seven vowels in same word, because it would make only "aioaioaaee" -noise. But we actually do have, at least one: hääyöaie. (It is not widely used, more a curiosity, but it still makes perfect sense if you speak Finnish!)
Considering this book drove me nuts and I don't even know that much about linguistics, I would imagine listening this would make a painful experience for anyone who is more familiar with the subject.
This was also way too long, and repetitive. The same things were told over and over again.
And even though I am not a linguist and I only listen to these because I have boring hobbies, I could still find several mistakes. Mostly considering Finnish and Scandinavian languages, since those happen to be the ones I'm most familiar with.
The lecturer also said, that it is not possible to have a language that would have seven vowels in same word, because it would make only "aioaioaaee" -noise. But we actually do have, at least one: hääyöaie. (It is not widely used, more a curiosity, but it still makes perfect sense if you speak Finnish!)
Considering this book drove me nuts and I don't even know that much about linguistics, I would imagine listening this would make a painful experience for anyone who is more familiar with the subject.
October 15, 2019
Okay, so this might be one of my favorite things I've listened to in a really long time. It's long. I mean, you'll be investing quite a number of hours into this lecture series but it will positively fly by. McWhorter is incredibly enthusiastic and passionate about his subject, and it really comes through in every lecture. I learned SO MUCH from this. Sometimes he went on little side tangents that didn't mean a whole lot to me as he kind of quibbled with the nuances of some linguistic thing, but he generally veered back to the topic at hand pretty quickly.
This lecture series is positively AMAZING and it really made me wish I'd taken classes like this when I was in college.
This lecture series is positively AMAZING and it really made me wish I'd taken classes like this when I was in college.
February 24, 2021
I’d almost completed writing my review and just as I thought better copy/paste this into my notes so it doesn’t disappear, made it disappear. Ffs. My head hurts.
Great series of lectures. Very funny delivery by a highly creative professor. I may attempt to rewrite what just blinked off my screen but too discouraged to even try right now.
Great series of lectures. Very funny delivery by a highly creative professor. I may attempt to rewrite what just blinked off my screen but too discouraged to even try right now.
June 7, 2023
Knowledge has a recursive nature just as certainly Rule 110 of cellular automation can ground reality between order and chaos and build any world. Linguistics and its understanding give a building block for understanding human development, language, psychology, science, myths or religion, philosophy, and evolution. This lecture focuses on language development and it’s for the listener to make the other connections through the lens of linguistics since all knowledge is related, contextualized, and connected when the recursive nature of thought is understood, and this lecture series thoroughly dissects the nature of linguistics.
This lecture is expertly presented. I’m glad I had previously watched ‘Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind’ on Wonderium before watching this series (Grimm’s Law was explained there too).
This lecture is expertly presented. I’m glad I had previously watched ‘Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind’ on Wonderium before watching this series (Grimm’s Law was explained there too).
February 14, 2025
These TGCs are just like knowledge burritos. Delicious and you’re open to have one from time to time!
April 23, 2016
I now have a much better understanding of language, where it came from, how it got here, and where it's going.
"The Story of Human Language" is a Teaching Company course of 36 half-hour lectures by Dr. John McWhorter of Columbia University. It's been a while since I listened to this via cds borrowed from the library, but if I recall, McWhorter was a good speaker, who was easy to listen to. He must've been, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten through 18 hours of the stuff!
No, it's not riveting ALL the way through, but if you have an interest in linguistics, I highly recommend this!
"The Story of Human Language" is a Teaching Company course of 36 half-hour lectures by Dr. John McWhorter of Columbia University. It's been a while since I listened to this via cds borrowed from the library, but if I recall, McWhorter was a good speaker, who was easy to listen to. He must've been, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten through 18 hours of the stuff!
No, it's not riveting ALL the way through, but if you have an interest in linguistics, I highly recommend this!
June 25, 2021
A very interesting class, there’s a lot of detail but you will find the instructor help you through it very well. It’s definitely very excited about the subject and it is contagious.
June 12, 2024
John McWhorter delivers a fascinating, detailed exploration of how language changes. He explores changes in grammar, vocabulary, and sounds; the splitting, merging, and death of languages; geographical distribution and language families. His style is conversational and engaging, his lectures are well structured and interesting.
At the same time, John McWhorter can be opinionated, inappropriate, and mildly creepy. I enjoyed most of the material, and found it educational. But the wtf moments kept coming. For example, he uses the example "I push the dog into the water", because he finds pushing a dog off the Titanic into the water to die funny. Huh?? As an example of how people talk in real life, he cites Brits discussing dog breeding where he needs to explain that the word "bitch" here is means female dog and not a derogatory comment. You'd think there would be thousands of examples not needing that explanation. At some point he goes on about "leftist academia" completely out of context. He uses the term "Negro" when "Black" would be the commonly used term (he is Black).
I took a big issue with the first chapter, where he discusses what language is, but fails to define it. What I gathered, is that language is a higher form of communication that only humans are capable of, and it has grammar. He goes on to explain how animals cannot do it. So it all boils down to: language is something that only people do, so only people are capable of doing it.
He has an antropocentric bias. He speaks at length how we cannot teach dogs or chimpanzees to speak, as even after years, they only learn a few words of our human speech. But seriously. Both dogs and chimpanzees understand us way more than we understand them! Honeybees can tell each other where pollen is by dancing - McWhorter concludes that that's all they can do, they cannot chew the fat. How does he know? Just because we have decoded only this meaning, it does not mean they don't have thousands of other things they talk about. I happen to know that they can vote on prospective hive locations (Honeybee Democracy).
Dogs have an entire world of scents completely closed to us. He is sure a dog cannot tell her CV to us, but maybe she can, we just can't smell it. And we have recently discovered that whale song has the elements of language, such as equivalents of sounds and syllables.
Back to the good, some interesting tidbits from the lectures:
- Languages naturally get more complex if their speakers remain an isolated group. Thus the most complex languages are not the large, wide spread ones, but isolated, tribal languages. (Joke on you, language elitists.)
- When adults learn a language, they drop complexities. Thus when different groups merge (due to migration, conquest, or trade), languages tend to simplify. This is how English got stripped of most of the grammar present in other Germanic languages, such as verb endings and genders.
- We can trace the origin of peoples by comparing their languages. A language develops dofferently when their speakers spread around, and we can trace when and where the languages diverged.
- Language families developed as one original language, that later split into different languages, then sub-languages, etc.
- Creole languages are created when two languages merge, and this is the only way we know that new languages are born.
And much, much more. McWhorter clearly knows his linguistics. But he should stay away from anything else.
At the same time, John McWhorter can be opinionated, inappropriate, and mildly creepy. I enjoyed most of the material, and found it educational. But the wtf moments kept coming. For example, he uses the example "I push the dog into the water", because he finds pushing a dog off the Titanic into the water to die funny. Huh?? As an example of how people talk in real life, he cites Brits discussing dog breeding where he needs to explain that the word "bitch" here is means female dog and not a derogatory comment. You'd think there would be thousands of examples not needing that explanation. At some point he goes on about "leftist academia" completely out of context. He uses the term "Negro" when "Black" would be the commonly used term (he is Black).
I took a big issue with the first chapter, where he discusses what language is, but fails to define it. What I gathered, is that language is a higher form of communication that only humans are capable of, and it has grammar. He goes on to explain how animals cannot do it. So it all boils down to: language is something that only people do, so only people are capable of doing it.
He has an antropocentric bias. He speaks at length how we cannot teach dogs or chimpanzees to speak, as even after years, they only learn a few words of our human speech. But seriously. Both dogs and chimpanzees understand us way more than we understand them! Honeybees can tell each other where pollen is by dancing - McWhorter concludes that that's all they can do, they cannot chew the fat. How does he know? Just because we have decoded only this meaning, it does not mean they don't have thousands of other things they talk about. I happen to know that they can vote on prospective hive locations (Honeybee Democracy).
Dogs have an entire world of scents completely closed to us. He is sure a dog cannot tell her CV to us, but maybe she can, we just can't smell it. And we have recently discovered that whale song has the elements of language, such as equivalents of sounds and syllables.
Back to the good, some interesting tidbits from the lectures:
- Languages naturally get more complex if their speakers remain an isolated group. Thus the most complex languages are not the large, wide spread ones, but isolated, tribal languages. (Joke on you, language elitists.)
- When adults learn a language, they drop complexities. Thus when different groups merge (due to migration, conquest, or trade), languages tend to simplify. This is how English got stripped of most of the grammar present in other Germanic languages, such as verb endings and genders.
- We can trace the origin of peoples by comparing their languages. A language develops dofferently when their speakers spread around, and we can trace when and where the languages diverged.
- Language families developed as one original language, that later split into different languages, then sub-languages, etc.
- Creole languages are created when two languages merge, and this is the only way we know that new languages are born.
And much, much more. McWhorter clearly knows his linguistics. But he should stay away from anything else.
February 26, 2020
This audiobook has been my companion for the past month on my way to work. It reignited my passion towards all things language, how they originate all the way to how and why they die. A must for anyone with an interest in linguistics!
November 7, 2021
Utterly and absolutely spectacular. One of the best things I've ever listened to.
May 28, 2019
Really fascinating material here. I'd consider listening to another lecture series by this author. However, he did have some odd choices of example or phrasing. For the most part I didn't have any problems (and he tends to use cats as comparisons to languages a lot, which I found very cute). But every now and then he'd say something that would make me pause and which felt a bit weird. I can't remember them now -- they weren't bad enough to make me remember them, and they certainly weren't intentionally offensive. Just weird.
As to the course itself, I expected a slightly different approach than he took. He acknowledged this at the end, mentioning that if he had bought the course as a listener, he would have expected this to be a set on how words change and enter a language. The last lecture was exactly and entirely that, and after listening to it I am glad the course wasn't what I expected. It turns out that the story of how languages grow and change and die and form is a lot more interesting than I had realized. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Linguistics.
As to the course itself, I expected a slightly different approach than he took. He acknowledged this at the end, mentioning that if he had bought the course as a listener, he would have expected this to be a set on how words change and enter a language. The last lecture was exactly and entirely that, and after listening to it I am glad the course wasn't what I expected. It turns out that the story of how languages grow and change and die and form is a lot more interesting than I had realized. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Linguistics.
June 20, 2019
McWhorter is my pet linguist. He has the special gift of simplifying and explaining complicated linguistics and his narrative style is so charming that you can listen to 18+ hours of him talking about linguistics (which some people would describe as torture :D) and getting sad that it ended :(
I put a 4 star rating because a lot of the information overlapped with what I already knew and maybe I didn't find it that interesting, but it could be a 5 for many.
I put a 4 star rating because a lot of the information overlapped with what I already knew and maybe I didn't find it that interesting, but it could be a 5 for many.
December 21, 2019
A three set series, VERY VERY worthwhile, and extremely fun. John McWhorter has a wonderful jolly banter and sense of fun as he delivers these lectures. I enjoyed the so much that I think I'm going to listen to them again in a month or so.
Learning how language organically changes and morphs and adds things and drops things is just fascinating!
HIGHLY recommended!!!
Learning how language organically changes and morphs and adds things and drops things is just fascinating!
HIGHLY recommended!!!
July 18, 2021
I wish I had a linguistics professor that lectured like this. I think it’s a false title. This isn’t really a history of language so much as it’s a survey of linguistics in general. Nonetheless, it’s quite comprehensive. If you like linguistics, this is for you. I recommend it highly.
October 16, 2017
This was really a great course, very interresting and complete with a little taste of many subjects related to languages. I discovered that, I might not be a linguist, but I'm surely a language head.
September 1, 2019
A phenomenal introduction to linguistics. From semantics , syntax language revolution and death
October 14, 2022
Another entertaining Great Courses lecture series. For the most part, I find McWhorter entertaining as well as educational -- this is our 2nd of his titles. Sometimes his kinda sorta dad jokes (linguist version) fail, but I'd rather that than a dry style, or one that takes itself too seriously.
Listening while driving makes it hard to take notes, but he does repeat certain things enough that they stick a while. Some of his cultural references are already dated, but on the other hand placing these lectures in time can be helpful when following up.
I listened to this after having listened to Language Families of the World, and believe that was a more helpful order than vice versa would have been, but it would probably stand alone OK too.
3.85 stars, as he seemed a little punchy or flippant the last two lectures, imo.
Listening while driving makes it hard to take notes, but he does repeat certain things enough that they stick a while. Some of his cultural references are already dated, but on the other hand placing these lectures in time can be helpful when following up.
I listened to this after having listened to Language Families of the World, and believe that was a more helpful order than vice versa would have been, but it would probably stand alone OK too.
3.85 stars, as he seemed a little punchy or flippant the last two lectures, imo.
May 7, 2016
McWhorter is that memorable teacher or professor you had, the one who was witty and self-deprecating and who could keep a room full of students riveted seemingly without effort - which is fortunate because "The Story of Human Language" is a collection of 36 hours' worth of his lectures. It is a tremendously rewarding and entertaining listen, partly because of the content but also because of McWhorter's charm as he relays vast amounts of information in a way that is accessible but never condescending to the lay person. He intersperses explanations about the finer points of grammar, the difference between pidgins and creoles, and a whole lot more with stories about his beloved cat, former girlfriends, and assorted adventures around the globe. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in linguistics.
June 29, 2020
Really fun and informative, and John McWhorter is really funny. I was really shocked though by how much an materialistic evolutionary worldview can affect your linguistic philosophy. I didn’t even know before listening to this that I had a linguistic philosophy, but I found out that I do, and it’s almost completely opposed to the one presented here. Language is not fundamentally for communication in order to survive, and that affects your values and beliefs for everything down the road, including people’s motivations for changing the way they talk and even including whether or not bad grammar exists (at the level of double negatives and using ‘me’ as a subject). But all the actual information in here was really enlightening.
January 30, 2009
I love linguistics and I like John McWhorter (highly recommended: The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language) so this audio-book series from one of those "teaching courses" fitted my needs exactly - to wit, something to listen to on the way to and from work.
The first 12 lectures (the first volume) cover familiar ground but McWhorter is engaging and it's endlessly fascinating stuff. I have yet to listen to the 2nd and 3rd volumes but I look forward to it.
The first 12 lectures (the first volume) cover familiar ground but McWhorter is engaging and it's endlessly fascinating stuff. I have yet to listen to the 2nd and 3rd volumes but I look forward to it.
August 3, 2019
Arguably the best Great Courses series I've ever listened to. It's truly fantastic.
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