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The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World
Forget the language instinct—this is the story of how we make up language as we go
Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity—and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.
Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity—and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 22, 2022
About the author
Morten H. Christiansen
8 books13 followersMorten H. Christiansen is the William R. Kenan, Jr. professor of psychology at Cornell University as well as a senior scientist at the Haskins Labs and professor in cognitive science of language at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and has edited four books. He lives near Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
February 16, 2023
Review This book has charades and improv and gesturing, as the base of language. This is quite unlike Chomsky's theory of universal grammar that is innate and that is what makes languages possible. Since many languages have very little in common as to structure let alone words, it seems obvious to me that although language is an instinct, a built-in grammar certainly isn't. Pinker modified this theory, saying it was the production of evolution, which Chomsky doesn't agree with. Christiansen doesn't agree with either of them, and has written what is, so far, a most entertaining book.
Christiansen bases his theory of language on charades, improv and that onomatopoeia means that certain sounds (not the written equivalent) will have the same meaning in any language. And example of this was glop glop glop glop glop, water dripping right?
The first example in the book is the story of Captain Cook moored in Tierra del Fuego in January 1769, hoping to restock supplies before tackling the Pacific. Cook took a party onshore and met some members of a tribe of Haush hunter-gatherers. Two of the Haush stepped forward and throwing away sticks advanced towards Cook's party. Throwing away possible weapons would be interpreted by everyone as 'coming in peace'. Three of the Haush came aboard the ship accepted gifts graciously, ate lustily and refused the rum and brandy 'gesturing it burned their throats'. When they were ready they gestured they were ready to go back on shore.
These two parties, Europeans and Haush had nothing in common, but understood each other anyway. Although the language was not written down, a connected language from Ona, has three vowels and twenty three consonants that had nothing in common, words or grammar, with the over 400 living languages derived from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European.
Charades is a game of the indicating by gesture of a title or phrase that players must guess. It is in the combination of gestures that the meaning becomes clear. Certain deaf languages are based on this just as pictogram languages like Chinese were originally based on the combination of pictures to indicate meaning. Playing charades with the same people often results in a kind of shorthand of gestures understood by both.
From another book, by John McWhorter afair (but it might have been Steven Pinker) it takes only two years to form a language. In Hawai'i pineapple pickers came from many countries and communicated with each other and their bosses in pidgin English. Their children however, in kindergarten and up, took only two years to develop simple pidgin, for example 'name?' into 'what's your name' complete with grammar and vocabulary.
Reading notes My thoughts. It is easy to extrapolate from this gesturing, which the great apes do, to a spoken language which other primates do not have the physical capability to do. So if the great apes communicate in gestures it becomes how did people evolve to have the right physical equipment to do more than squeal and grunt but to speak?
How did we evolve a voice box and such mobile lips and tongues that we could make such precise sounds? And how do mynah birds, budgies and parrots also make these very precise sounds without similar equipment. I don't know about budgies and mynahs but parrots, see Alex and Me and The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots, for actual understanding of what they say.
Christiansen bases his theory of language on charades, improv and that onomatopoeia means that certain sounds (not the written equivalent) will have the same meaning in any language. And example of this was glop glop glop glop glop, water dripping right?
The first example in the book is the story of Captain Cook moored in Tierra del Fuego in January 1769, hoping to restock supplies before tackling the Pacific. Cook took a party onshore and met some members of a tribe of Haush hunter-gatherers. Two of the Haush stepped forward and throwing away sticks advanced towards Cook's party. Throwing away possible weapons would be interpreted by everyone as 'coming in peace'. Three of the Haush came aboard the ship accepted gifts graciously, ate lustily and refused the rum and brandy 'gesturing it burned their throats'. When they were ready they gestured they were ready to go back on shore.
These two parties, Europeans and Haush had nothing in common, but understood each other anyway. Although the language was not written down, a connected language from Ona, has three vowels and twenty three consonants that had nothing in common, words or grammar, with the over 400 living languages derived from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European.
Charades is a game of the indicating by gesture of a title or phrase that players must guess. It is in the combination of gestures that the meaning becomes clear. Certain deaf languages are based on this just as pictogram languages like Chinese were originally based on the combination of pictures to indicate meaning. Playing charades with the same people often results in a kind of shorthand of gestures understood by both.
From another book, by John McWhorter afair (but it might have been Steven Pinker) it takes only two years to form a language. In Hawai'i pineapple pickers came from many countries and communicated with each other and their bosses in pidgin English. Their children however, in kindergarten and up, took only two years to develop simple pidgin, for example 'name?' into 'what's your name' complete with grammar and vocabulary.
Reading notes My thoughts. It is easy to extrapolate from this gesturing, which the great apes do, to a spoken language which other primates do not have the physical capability to do. So if the great apes communicate in gestures it becomes how did people evolve to have the right physical equipment to do more than squeal and grunt but to speak?
How did we evolve a voice box and such mobile lips and tongues that we could make such precise sounds? And how do mynah birds, budgies and parrots also make these very precise sounds without similar equipment. I don't know about budgies and mynahs but parrots, see Alex and Me and The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots, for actual understanding of what they say.
Read
December 10, 2023Very interesting look at the development of language that basically says Chomsky and Pinker are wrong. There's no universal grammar, no inherent hard-wired part of the brain with language rules stored in it. There is, however, the capacity and desire to communicate and have it go both ways. People talk and listen and try to understand and build on what we hear, and rapidly codify rules to make communication quicker and easier.
It's extremely persuasive, especially with the focus on the human drive to communicate back and forth rather than just speak into a vacuum (something Chomsky et al don't rally pay attention to).
It's extremely persuasive, especially with the focus on the human drive to communicate back and forth rather than just speak into a vacuum (something Chomsky et al don't rally pay attention to).
December 1, 2021
Fascinating. This is a book that basically argues that Noam Chomsky had some great ideas, but ultimately was quite a bit wrong and quite a bit off. And yes, that is an oversimplification explicitly designed (by me) to hook you into reading this book while also giving you an idea of the ultimate direction here. The authors are consistently afraid of "anarchy" *even while actually touting its exact benefits* - their entire argument is that language (and humanity) evolve best and most usefully outside of the bounds of rules (and thus outside the bounds of rulers - and since the literal definition of "anarchy" is "without rulers"... ;) ). Which is where they ultimately come into conflict with Chomsky's ideas of a universal language and a universal grammar machine. For someone that is decently educated but well outside the specific field at hand (Bachelor of Science in Computer Science), I found this to be a solid examination of the topic in language that I could easily follow- whenever technical discussions within the field were at hand, Christiansen and Chater did a solid job of using their running metaphor of a game of charades to explain the differences and similarities in what they were describing using a system that so many of us know fairly well and can relate to very easily. As I said in the title here, truly a fascinating book, one anyone "of the word" - and thus, any reader, since we are *all* people "of the word" - should read. Very much recommended.
July 16, 2022
“The Language Game” (2022) é mais um importante contributo para a abordagem comportamental da linguagem em detrimento da abordagem inata. Já aqui tinha trazido o trabalho de Daniel L. Everett, “How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention” (2017), assim como "Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning" (2012) de Benjamim Bergen, ou ainda “Origins of Human Communication” (2008) de Michael Tomasello. A abordagem de Morten H. Christiansen, da U. Cornell e Nick Charter, da U. Warwick, é inovadora, apresentando uma teorização, com base em estudos empíricos, que defende a interação humana como base da linguagem humana, propondo que a evolução da linguagem ocorre a partir de jogos de charadas. Cada um de nós procura compreender o outro e pela improvisação fazer-se compreender da melhor forma possível. Quando em face de alguém com quem não partilhamos a mesma língua, partimos para o uso de sons, expressões, gestos, poses, desenhos, construindo charadas que o outro possa chegar a compreender.
“Faced with the immediate challenge of communication, [-- they] created signs and symbols in the moment. Humans with a message to convey, but without any linguistic resources at hand, will improvise an ad hoc communicative solution—whether through sounds, gesture, or facial expressions. But in doing so, they inadvertently create a resource for future exchanges, to be reused and modified as required.”
.
.
Texto completo no VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
“Faced with the immediate challenge of communication, [-- they] created signs and symbols in the moment. Humans with a message to convey, but without any linguistic resources at hand, will improvise an ad hoc communicative solution—whether through sounds, gesture, or facial expressions. But in doing so, they inadvertently create a resource for future exchanges, to be reused and modified as required.”
.
.
Texto completo no VI: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
March 24, 2022
أطروحة بديعة في فهم اللغة؛ نشأتها وتطورها. تعتمد على فكرة الارتجال المتبادل كأساس لنموّ اللغة وتطورها. نموّ وتطوّر هدفه التواصل الفعّال.
واللغة هنا لعبة تشبه لعبة (الشاراديس*) أو ما نعرفه بالعربية بـ"من غير كلام" والتي يعتمد فيها اللاعبون وضعيات وحركات معينة يتوصلون بها إلى الكلمات. أو هي رقص مشترك يتناغم فيه الطرفان ويتفاهمان. فاللغة بكل أشكالها إن هي إلا وسيلة تواصل.غايتها التواصل الفعال، ولأجله تتطور وتتغير وتتبدّل.
واللغة هنا تعلم اجتماعي لا بيولوجي، وأساس للتطور الاجتماعي لا أداة لتطور بيولوجي سابق.
قواعد اللغة لاحقة لا سابقة، وأول أمرها كان في إعادة استخدام المجرّب النافع، وتكرار ما أثبت صلاحيته للتواصل.
و"الارتجال" عند أحد الكاتبين، وهو نيك شاتر، هو عماد كتابه السابق الذي يرى فيه الدماغ سطحا بلا عمق، طارحا تصورا جديدا يخالف فيه فكرة وجود العقل الباطن.
الكتاب ممتع في فكرته وعرضه خاصة في نصفه الأول، وكان وافياً. ويعيبه الاستطراد الكثير في نصفه الثاني، وكان مملاً.
*charades
واللغة هنا لعبة تشبه لعبة (الشاراديس*) أو ما نعرفه بالعربية بـ"من غير كلام" والتي يعتمد فيها اللاعبون وضعيات وحركات معينة يتوصلون بها إلى الكلمات. أو هي رقص مشترك يتناغم فيه الطرفان ويتفاهمان. فاللغة بكل أشكالها إن هي إلا وسيلة تواصل.غايتها التواصل الفعال، ولأجله تتطور وتتغير وتتبدّل.
واللغة هنا تعلم اجتماعي لا بيولوجي، وأساس للتطور الاجتماعي لا أداة لتطور بيولوجي سابق.
قواعد اللغة لاحقة لا سابقة، وأول أمرها كان في إعادة استخدام المجرّب النافع، وتكرار ما أثبت صلاحيته للتواصل.
و"الارتجال" عند أحد الكاتبين، وهو نيك شاتر، هو عماد كتابه السابق الذي يرى فيه الدماغ سطحا بلا عمق، طارحا تصورا جديدا يخالف فيه فكرة وجود العقل الباطن.
الكتاب ممتع في فكرته وعرضه خاصة في نصفه الأول، وكان وافياً. ويعيبه الاستطراد الكثير في نصفه الثاني، وكان مملاً.
*charades
July 21, 2025
I got a bit swept up in this book, fist pumping and muttering to myself late at night. It makes a convincing argument against language having a "universal grammar" which children acquire due to having the correct biological templates built into their brains. Instead language is presented as having evolved through games of charades; playful and social, context-dependent and therefore susceptible to cultural forces that move much faster than biological evolution. Also my 2 year old son has started languaging in a way that is perfectly captured in this book so the theory must be true.
June 20, 2022
I picked out a few thoughts from this mutitude of interesting observations and facts.
The premise of this book is that language is like a game of charades – in other words, our playful minds provide the flexibility necessary to work out meaning. As each game progresses, it acquires ramifications and we get better at it. Subsequently, signs acquire multiple meanings. Captain Cook used gestures and signs, as well as gifts, to communicate with the indigenous people he encountered. It was limited, but enough for immediate purposes.
Chomsky believed that mathematics lay at the heart of language. It was like computer science. But how did children learn? He also believed that grammar was hard wired in our brains. So mathematics and children’s innate ability combined and that is how a child developed an understanding of language. However, the view that grammar is innate has been overturned. This book contains interesting and linguistic oddities (oddities to us).
Regardless of whether you are convinced of the charade theory, the case for a language born of our playful minds is certainly compelling, if not attractive. It gives us hope that "singularity" is unlikely to occur – singularity is the hypothetical point when human intelligence is overtaken by artificial intelligence.
Here is what the authors say about language:
For both children and adults, the instability of language , as reflected by the ubiquity of analogies and metaphors, turns out to be its essence, not a curious anomaly. Not only that, as in charades, meaning in language is fundamentally public and social in nature – like the ideas of monetary value, ownership or being married.
In a BBC programme called "Word of Mouth", titled What is Language Good For, we hear how difficult it is to pin down meaning. They mention the famous example of a word whose meaning depends on mood or point of view: Venus is referred to as morning star or an evening star. An innocuous phrase can acquire various undertones. The programme reinforces the idea that language is not logical.
So for the authors
the flexibility, playfulness and capriciousness are not weaknesses to be ironed out by applying austere tools or formal logic these are the very essence of how language works. It is the very lightness of meaning that allows us to wield language so deftly – to deal with every shifting communication challenges in an ever changing world. Human language is poetry first prose second
The way language evolves and meanings shift, demonstrates the playfulness or illogicality of language. Different cultures have different ways of conveying their ideas of the world. Some have no words for numbers or time. What is so fascinating is how words metamorphose from one language to another. Not only that, the process proves worth examining.
Take the word for foot. Linguists trace relationships between languages in different regions of the world.
Rasmus Rusk (a formidable philologist) noted:
the sounds of consonants change across languages and time, establishing not only the relationship between old Norse and the Germanic languages but also how them Baltic and Slavic langages are related to classical Latin and Greek. For example in Germanic languages the p sound shifted to f. thus the word for foot was in ancient Greek pous, podos, in Latin pes pedis, in Sanskrit pada in West ‘frisian foet, in German fuss, in, in Lithuanian peda, in Latvian peda, in Gothic fotus in Icelandic fotur in Danish fod in Norwegian and Swedish fot and of course in English foot.
This was codified by Joseph Grimm (one of the “fairytale” brothers) and became Grimm’s law. Rusk’s work, published in Danish, sank into obscurity,
The Santa Fé Institute:
Insights into the emergence of linguistic order out of everyday disordered interactions came to the authors from an unexpected source : a private physics minded think tank nestled in the Sangre de Cristo foothills of New Mexico
They study the wonderfully named complexity theory. This sounds just the thing for the way humans have developed language from the basics of charades.
Spontaneous self organisation:
Language is like other human institutions - think of the complexity of trade or economy, of countries – out of chaos a certain order emerges. Each individual has a role to play within the organisation. This exceeds the understanding of any one of us!
we are more like termites than we would like to think. is the conclusion.
Animals - why do they lack language as we know it?
The nearest to our language is the song of birds. The authors call it music. I like their transliteration of the nightingale’s song. Birds learn from their parents and others. There is also the bee’s waggle dance and tremble dance;
I feel that the birth of language and the way grammar and vocabulary develop remain a mystery. Which is it should be. We can study it, enjoy studying it in all its wonderful variety and complexity but the mystique remains.
The premise of this book is that language is like a game of charades – in other words, our playful minds provide the flexibility necessary to work out meaning. As each game progresses, it acquires ramifications and we get better at it. Subsequently, signs acquire multiple meanings. Captain Cook used gestures and signs, as well as gifts, to communicate with the indigenous people he encountered. It was limited, but enough for immediate purposes.
Chomsky believed that mathematics lay at the heart of language. It was like computer science. But how did children learn? He also believed that grammar was hard wired in our brains. So mathematics and children’s innate ability combined and that is how a child developed an understanding of language. However, the view that grammar is innate has been overturned. This book contains interesting and linguistic oddities (oddities to us).
Regardless of whether you are convinced of the charade theory, the case for a language born of our playful minds is certainly compelling, if not attractive. It gives us hope that "singularity" is unlikely to occur – singularity is the hypothetical point when human intelligence is overtaken by artificial intelligence.
Here is what the authors say about language:
For both children and adults, the instability of language , as reflected by the ubiquity of analogies and metaphors, turns out to be its essence, not a curious anomaly. Not only that, as in charades, meaning in language is fundamentally public and social in nature – like the ideas of monetary value, ownership or being married.
In a BBC programme called "Word of Mouth", titled What is Language Good For, we hear how difficult it is to pin down meaning. They mention the famous example of a word whose meaning depends on mood or point of view: Venus is referred to as morning star or an evening star. An innocuous phrase can acquire various undertones. The programme reinforces the idea that language is not logical.
So for the authors
the flexibility, playfulness and capriciousness are not weaknesses to be ironed out by applying austere tools or formal logic these are the very essence of how language works. It is the very lightness of meaning that allows us to wield language so deftly – to deal with every shifting communication challenges in an ever changing world. Human language is poetry first prose second
The way language evolves and meanings shift, demonstrates the playfulness or illogicality of language. Different cultures have different ways of conveying their ideas of the world. Some have no words for numbers or time. What is so fascinating is how words metamorphose from one language to another. Not only that, the process proves worth examining.
Take the word for foot. Linguists trace relationships between languages in different regions of the world.
Rasmus Rusk (a formidable philologist) noted:
the sounds of consonants change across languages and time, establishing not only the relationship between old Norse and the Germanic languages but also how them Baltic and Slavic langages are related to classical Latin and Greek. For example in Germanic languages the p sound shifted to f. thus the word for foot was in ancient Greek pous, podos, in Latin pes pedis, in Sanskrit pada in West ‘frisian foet, in German fuss, in, in Lithuanian peda, in Latvian peda, in Gothic fotus in Icelandic fotur in Danish fod in Norwegian and Swedish fot and of course in English foot.
This was codified by Joseph Grimm (one of the “fairytale” brothers) and became Grimm’s law. Rusk’s work, published in Danish, sank into obscurity,
The Santa Fé Institute:
Insights into the emergence of linguistic order out of everyday disordered interactions came to the authors from an unexpected source : a private physics minded think tank nestled in the Sangre de Cristo foothills of New Mexico
They study the wonderfully named complexity theory. This sounds just the thing for the way humans have developed language from the basics of charades.
Spontaneous self organisation:
Language is like other human institutions - think of the complexity of trade or economy, of countries – out of chaos a certain order emerges. Each individual has a role to play within the organisation. This exceeds the understanding of any one of us!
we are more like termites than we would like to think. is the conclusion.
Animals - why do they lack language as we know it?
The nearest to our language is the song of birds. The authors call it music. I like their transliteration of the nightingale’s song. Birds learn from their parents and others. There is also the bee’s waggle dance and tremble dance;
I feel that the birth of language and the way grammar and vocabulary develop remain a mystery. Which is it should be. We can study it, enjoy studying it in all its wonderful variety and complexity but the mystique remains.
February 17, 2024
4+
This is a fascinating and convincing book that makes readers think about language very differently, with studies about many different languages and how children learn languages and the brain and also how animals communicate. It would be a great selection for a thoughtful non-fiction book club (like The Sunday Philosophers).
The only flaws were a bit too much repetition and the narrator's voice, which was not helped by his British accent.
4- Read in print the secomd time around for the Sunday Philosophers. Enjoyed it more in audio.
This is a fascinating and convincing book that makes readers think about language very differently, with studies about many different languages and how children learn languages and the brain and also how animals communicate. It would be a great selection for a thoughtful non-fiction book club (like The Sunday Philosophers).
The only flaws were a bit too much repetition and the narrator's voice, which was not helped by his British accent.
4- Read in print the secomd time around for the Sunday Philosophers. Enjoyed it more in audio.
August 4, 2025
Before this, I did not have an opinion on how we developed language. Improv is more than just a kind of comedic act, literally giving us the gift of the gab. Despite the slow start, I learnt a lot with this one.
Read
April 25, 2022My interview with Professors Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater about "The Language Game"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzyn...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzyn...
June 16, 2022
2.5 the beginning was great!! But I was completely bored by the end. It also felt like the information was all over the place
December 3, 2022
This was really interesting! The idea of language being created/developing through a charades-like process of improvisation makes a lot of sense, but I also was not that familiar with the previous theories from Chomsky and others that the authors were arguing against, so it wasn't necessarily a groundbreaking idea for me.
This is a very readable book, even as the authors include a lot of data from studies and evidence from evolutionary biology to back up their claims.
This book also gave me a new appreciation for the beauty of language and human creativity, as it was clearly shown how much language separates us from both animals and AI, and is essential to our "human-ness."
This is a very readable book, even as the authors include a lot of data from studies and evidence from evolutionary biology to back up their claims.
This book also gave me a new appreciation for the beauty of language and human creativity, as it was clearly shown how much language separates us from both animals and AI, and is essential to our "human-ness."
May 23, 2025
A very convincing read. If you're interested in language in any way I would definitely recommend it 😁
January 12, 2023
Great fun for a word nerd! At first, it seemed very intuitive, but as it got deeper it became ever more fascinating.
July 3, 2022
It started off well - using charades as a model for how we learn to communicate and perhaps how language evolved, was quite brilliant.
But Christiansen's description and understanding of (evolving) computer/AI language 'skills' differed greatly from my own based on a computer linguistics career. Also, describing linguistic 'chunking' as a major breakthru seemed a stretch to me. Chunking is a well understood process in a multitude of learning areas. Eg, a chessmaster sees a game position in chunks not individual pieces.
As he explained, the current semi-literate computer helpers (Alexa, Siri, etc) use tons of speech and transcripts to train word/phrase recognition as well as topic correlations. Google already has a search engine that does a pretty good job of finding something you want based on some key words.
Christiansen then says this type of AI will never make it to human understanding and intelligence (singularity, sort of) because it's just doing statistics with the inputs it's been trained with. What I think he is missing is that all human thought, actions are formed and trained in the same way at the neural level. It's more complex with humans right now because we have a multiple sensory inputs whereas Alexa only has speech, associated transcripts, and a google search engine (overly simplified here).
With greater compute power and connectivity that eventually matches the human brain, plus additional sensory input and output channels, Alexa will someday be emotional in the ways we are.
But Christiansen's description and understanding of (evolving) computer/AI language 'skills' differed greatly from my own based on a computer linguistics career. Also, describing linguistic 'chunking' as a major breakthru seemed a stretch to me. Chunking is a well understood process in a multitude of learning areas. Eg, a chessmaster sees a game position in chunks not individual pieces.
As he explained, the current semi-literate computer helpers (Alexa, Siri, etc) use tons of speech and transcripts to train word/phrase recognition as well as topic correlations. Google already has a search engine that does a pretty good job of finding something you want based on some key words.
Christiansen then says this type of AI will never make it to human understanding and intelligence (singularity, sort of) because it's just doing statistics with the inputs it's been trained with. What I think he is missing is that all human thought, actions are formed and trained in the same way at the neural level. It's more complex with humans right now because we have a multiple sensory inputs whereas Alexa only has speech, associated transcripts, and a google search engine (overly simplified here).
With greater compute power and connectivity that eventually matches the human brain, plus additional sensory input and output channels, Alexa will someday be emotional in the ways we are.
October 3, 2021
I love learning languages, so I was intrigued to see what would unfold in The Language Game. Overall, it was an interesting and entertaining read that introduced a number of intriguing theories and examples. I thought the charades connection was particularly apt, and there was some fascinating information among the pages on how different aspects of vocabulary and grammar work in diverse languages around the globe. One or two sections felt a little dry here and there, but for the most part, I would say the book could be read and enjoyed by linguists and laypeople alike, since the concepts presented were generally well explained in easy terminology. If you are interested in the history of language and how we learn it, you will doubtless find The Language Game a worthwhile read. It gets a solid four stars from me.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 24, 2023
More an Argument than an Explanation.
I may have misinterpreted the description of this work. I have always been fascinated by the origins and evolution of language and I thought the authors would get into the nuts and bolts of the evolutionary process that resulted in the words we use to communicate.
While they touch on this subject glancingly while demonstrating their linguistic skills, the bulk of the book is consumed by demonstrating how their theory improves on any biological or genetic basis for this evolution.
This wasn’t what I was interested in so I will return the book. The performance was fine.The subject matter was not what I thought it would be. Three stars.***
I may have misinterpreted the description of this work. I have always been fascinated by the origins and evolution of language and I thought the authors would get into the nuts and bolts of the evolutionary process that resulted in the words we use to communicate.
While they touch on this subject glancingly while demonstrating their linguistic skills, the bulk of the book is consumed by demonstrating how their theory improves on any biological or genetic basis for this evolution.
This wasn’t what I was interested in so I will return the book. The performance was fine.The subject matter was not what I thought it would be. Three stars.***
April 19, 2026
Not sure if it's because it took me so long to finish this book or if I felt like the chapters were organised somewhat haphazardly. It felt like mini-essays strung into a longform piece, and I wasn't sure where the author was heading even within a chapter itself. Even so, it was a fun read and I particularly liked the chapter on early years language learning and what happens when people are sensorially deprived from a young age. The epilogue was uncanny to me as well - addressing what role language plays and the author's thoughts on singularity. I'm not a big AI doomsayer myself, but I do think that while the author's argument (language is what keeps us human even if AI continues to develop) is optimistic, the direction of the world is heading towards changing that paradigm itself and making this statement moot. But that's just me.
August 31, 2023
As a language teacher I found this book to be fascinating. There were many thoughts and examples here that really stood out and will undeniably help me to help my students. Possibly the best nugget being that grammar is the mathematical logic of a language. I had never thought of it that way and now use mathematical symbols to help my students comprehend some of the grammar rules in English.
February 7, 2024
As a linguist, I endorse this book. A solid introduction to many key concepts in current linguistic thought. The style is a bit overly repetitive, didactic - it's not a captivating book, but it is clear and interesting.
March 25, 2022
I loved reading this book! I found the writing to be very insightful and interesting. I was intrigued by the premise and I enjoyed reading it from start to finish.
September 23, 2025
beginning was great but I gradually got bored
July 27, 2022
انسان موجود ناطق است. این تنها یک جملهی فلسفیِ قدیمی نیست، بلکه مادامی که موجودی به نام انسان و با ویژگیهای گونهشناختی انسان وجود دارد، اعتبار خودش را حفظ خواهد کرد. به طور مطمئن میشود گفت که انسان و تا اطلاع ثانوی، تنها انسان موجودِ ناطق است. تلاشهای عموماً رسانهای متفاوتی میشود تا زبان به قلمروهای جانوری دیگر بسط داده و انسان از این امتیازِ منحصربهفرد خلع سلاح شود. این تلاشها اما به هر میزان هم جدّی و جانکاه باشد، هیچگاه به نتیجه نخواهد رسید. سوءتفاهم اصلی از اینجا سرچشمه میگیرد که نظامهای ارتباطی مختلف (از ارتباطات شیمیایی گرفته تا فیزیکی-صوتی) که میان همهی ردههای جانوری، از باکتریها گرفته تا بوزینهها، امری معمول و رایج و دارای تنوعات حیرتانگیز است، همگی اشکالِ دیگری از «زبان انسانی» در نظر میآیند؛ درحالیکه واقعیت جز این است!
کسانی که میکوشند تا در ظاهر به تبعیت از چارلز داروین، با جستجو در میان نظامهای ارتباطی عام جانوری، همهی آنها را طیفهایی تکاملی در نظر بیاورند که در نهایت به صورت زبانِ انسانی در میآید، تقریباً همانها هستند که به هر دلیل میخواهند با زدایش انحصار زبان، انسان را از برج عاج غرور و سرکشیاش پائین بکشند (البته که من با این کار مخالفتی ندارم!) صورتِ دیگر چنین انگیزهای آن است که از واقعیات جهان انسان-زدایی شود و بیگمان با زدایش انسان، آن خدایی هم که در ابتدا «بیان» را به وی بخشید، عملاً از میان برود (نیچهی زبانشناس درست روی همین زمین است که از آباء کلیسایی خویش میگسلد!) اگر زبانِ انسان تنها شکل تکاملیافتهای از همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانیِ دیگر باشد و طیفی (هرچند پیشرفتهتر) از همانها، پس برای توجیه حضور آن نه به مداخلهی خدا نیاز است و نه به یک ساحت متافیزیکی (مثلاً صورتِ افلاطونی) که روی واقعیت فیزیکیِ حیوانیت انسان بنشیند و او را از مقامِ پستِ حیوانی به درجهی اعلای انسانی، چنان ارتقاء ببخشد که یارای همصحبتیاش با خدا[یان] باشد.
در مقابل این گروهِ «تدریجیگرا»، همان گروه خدا/انسانگرا را داریم که جانِ کلامشان آن است که زبان متعلق به خداست و انسانِ بدونِ بیان، چیزی جز یک حیوانیتِ محض نیست و نمیتواند باشد. عبارتِ ارسطویی «انسان حیوانِ ناطق است» نزد این گروه آهنگ بهمراتب خوشالحانتری دارد تا نزد آن گروهِ پیشین که جان کلامشان چیزی شبیه به این عبارت میتواند باشد که «زبان یک خصلتِ حیوانی است».
اما واقعاً منشأ زبان در انسان چیست؟ هر کسی حتی اگر از دور دستی بر آتشِ زبانِ انسان گرفته باشد، حرارتِ بیبدیلیِ حیرتانگیز آن را بهوضوح احساس خواهد کرد. هر چه بکوشیم، در میان همهی نظامهای ارتباطی جانوری، تنها انسان از این قابلیت ارتباطی منحصربهفرد برخوردار است. از این گذشته، اتفاقاً وجود زبان موجب نشد که بقیهی نظامهای ارتباطی دیگر در انسان به حالت تعطیل درآید. برای مثال ما هنوز از طریق ترشحات شیمیایی، فیزیکی، شبه/آغاز-زبانی، بارها بیآنکه نسبت بدان حتی خودآگاه هم باشیم، پیامهایی را به یکدیگر منتقل میکنیم. ازینگذشته، جنس پیامهایی که از طریق زبان منتقل میشود به طور قابل توجهی متمایز از پیامهایی است که از طریق دیگر نظامها منتقل میشود. مثلاً ما با زبان میتوانیم به انتقال پیامهایی دربارهی موضوعات غایب بپردازیم؛ چیزهایی که در لحظهی سخنگفتن از آنها، خودشان حضور ندارند. همچنین بخش عمدهای از استفادههای زبانی ما در زندگی روزمره و بهنحوی اجدادی، عموماً کاربردهای غیبت، تمسخر، بذله، فریب و نیرگ داشته است و هنوز هم دارد. همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانی البته حدی از فریفتن و نیرنگزدن و استتار را در خود دارند. درست است که گلِ ارکیده به شکل حشرات ماده در میآید تا نرها را برای گردهافشانی نزد خود بکشاند، اما این فریفتن بخشی از فیلوژنی-اونتوژنی آن به شمار میآید و به عبارتی، غنچهی ارکیده نمیتواند تصمیم بگیرد که مثلاً «دیگر فریبکاری بس است و من دیگر نمیخواهم مثل والدینم شبیه حشرات بزرگ شوم و شکل و شمایل آنها را به خودم بگیرم!!» تقریباً همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانی حتی در فریبندگی خودشان الگو و مبنایی صادقانه و راست دارند. درحالیکه زبانِ آدمی کاملاً برعکس عمل میکند: حتی در صادقنمایانهترین حالت خود میتواند کاملاً گمراهکننده و فریبکارانه باشد؛ مثلاً آنجا که میکوشیم تا شخص را نسبت به وجودِ واقعی خدای آپولو و خصوصیتها و ویژگیهای او کاملاً متقاعد و آن خدا را امری راستین قلمداد کنیم.
پیشرفت علم نوین و بهخصوص کشف «ژن» موجب شد تا یک جریان سوم هم شکل بگیرد و بکوشد تا آراء خود را با ابزارهای علمی نوین تجهیز کند. این عده قبول دارند که زبان انسان امری منحصربهفرد است؛ اما قبول ندارند که از جانب خدا یا عالم مثل بر انسان نازل شده باشد. مسئولیت زبان را به «جهش» ناگهانی یک ژن خاص در نقطهی زمانیِ مشخصی از تاریخ تطوّر انسان نسبت میدهند. برجستهترین این اشخاص نوآم چامسکی است که متأسفانه، و تأکید میکنم متأسفانه آراء او تا همین امروز و در بیشتر موارد بهنحوی کورکورانه توسط دانشجویان و اساتید زبانشناسی دپارتمانهای مختلف دنیا وحی منزل تلقی میشود. اما برمبنای شواهد دیرینانسانشناختی، ژنتیک و باستانشناختی و همانطور که نویسندگان کتاب ارزشمند «بازی زبان؛ چگونه حاضرجوابی موجب آفرینش زبان شد و جهان را تغییر داد»، یعنی مورتن اچ. کریستینسن و نیک چِیتر نشان دادهاند، نه تنها چنین ژنی وجود خارجی نداشته و ندارد، بلکه بنابر اصول و قواعد تطور زیستشناختی، هرگز وجود نیز نخواهد داشت. آنها نشان میدهند که آن «دستورزبان جهانشمول» که در هر نوزاد انسانی به ودیعه گذاشته میشود از اساس یک توهم محض است و هیچ دو زبان انسانی را نمیتوان از هیچ جنبهای با هم برابر یا حتی به طور دقیق قابل مقایسه عین به عین دانست. حتی مثالهای متنوعی میآورند از اینکه خلاف نظریهی زایشیِ چامسکی، کودکان آنقدر هم که گفته میشود مستعد یادگیری زبانهای مختلف نیستند و برای مثال، کودکان دانمارکی تا زمانی که ۹۵ سالگی را هم رد کنند، هرگز به طور کامل بر زبان مادری خود که دانمارکی باشد نمیتوانند مسلط بشوند؛ حالآنکه همانها ممکن است انگلیسی معیار را با چند گویش و لهجه مثل بلبل بگویند و بخوانند و بنویسند. مشکل از کمهوشی دانمارکیها نیست؛ زبان دانمارکی شکل خاصی از زبان است که هرگونه یادگیری و محفوظداشتنِ جدای از سیاقها و بافتهای عملی و کنشیِ زندگی روزمره را پس میزند!
کریستینسن و چِیتر در کتاب «بازی زبان» نظریهای جالب و بسیار بامسماتر را در اختیار میگذارند. آنها با مقایسهی جایگاه، وجود، ماهیت و کاربرد زبان نزد انسانها با «ادا-بازی» (همانکه در عرف پانتومیم میخوانیم؛ حدسزدن واژهها از طریق اجرای حرکاتِ بدنی مشخص)، زایش زبان را دقیقاً ریشه در همین نوع بازی میدانند. به نظر آنها، ژست و حرکات بدنی همانقدر در رشد زبان نزد انسان بنیادین است که اصوات و صداها؛ و این هر دو، به قول ویتگنشتاین، تنها زمانی به زبان واقعی ختم میشوند که در سیاق اجرایی/کرداری بازیهای روزمره ظاهر شوند. فقط تصوّر کنید آن شکارچی پارینهسنگی قدیم را که از طریق ادا-بازی (مرکب از پیشا-واژگان و ژستهای بدنی) میخواهد نحوهی درست ساختن یک ابزار سنگی را به نوآموز خود یاد بدهد! برای همین حتی فرهنگهای لغت هم جلوی هر واژهای چندین و چند مترادف و متضاد مینشانند؛ چون هیچ کلمهای، حتی اگر معنایش کاملاً روشن و بدیهی به نظر برسد، هیچ معنایی ندارد مگر آنکه اجرا شود.
زبان یک محصول فرهنگی نزد انسانها است که در جریان تکامل فرهنگی این موجود تکامل یافته و روبهپیشرفت گذاشته است. البته که میان استفاده از زبان و زیستشناسی و ژنتیک انسان ارتباط مستقیم وجود دارد. شاید بتوان این نکته را با مثالی به شکل روشنتر بیان کرد. پرندگانی به نام «رنگینک بالچخماقی» وجود دارند که با برهمزدن شتابان بالهایشان موجب ایجاد صداهای دلنوازی از آنها میشوند که مادهها را به خود جلب میکند. آنها فاقد هرگونه ژن برای این کار هستند و این بالزدنهای صدادارشان را از نسلی به نسل دیگر منتقل میکنند. دیرینزیستشناسان نشان دادهاند که اجداد رنگینک بالچخماقی عادت به این کار نداشتند و این پرنده در نقطهای از تطور خویش بهشکلی «فرهنگی» این رفتار را آغاز کرده و ادامه داده است. اما همین بالزدنهای صدادار موجب شده است تا برخی از استخوانهای بال این پرندگان نسل به نسل تحلیل برود؛ زیرا به مرور باعث تغییرات اپیژنتیک (دگرگونیهای منبعث از محیط در چیدمان کدهای ژنتیک) در بالها شده است. درست است که تنها نرهای رنگینک بالچخماقی برای ایجاد صداهای دلنواز بال میزنند، اما این ضعف استخوانی برای پرواز از طریق توارث اپیژنتیک، به مادهها هم منتقل شده و پیشبینی میشود اگر رنگینکها همچنان به این رفتار خود ادامه بدهند، تا چندین نسل دیگر توانایی خود را برای پروازکردن بهطور کامل از دست میدهند.
زبان هم همین خصلت را دارد. اینکه شامپانزهها از قابلیتهای صوتی آنچنانی برخوردار نیستند درحالی که شجریان با پیچیدهترین حالت ممکن از حلق خود صدای چهچهه بیرون میدهد، به معنای وجود جهاز صوتی بیسابقه در او نسبت به شامپانزهها نیست، بلکه نشانهی همتطوری ژن-فرهنگی در ما است که در طول چندین و چند نسل، حلق و حنجرهمان را به چیزی فراتر از جهاز تنفسی-تغذیهای تطور داده است. بارها اتفاق افتاده و هنوز هم خواهد افتاد که یک رفتار فرهنگی با منشأ و تطور فرهنگی، بنیانهای زیستشناختی گونهی انسان (و گونههای دیگر، هر یک به نحو خاص خودشان) را دستخوش تغییر و تطور ساخته است.
این کتاب در رابطه با منشأ زبان و عوامل و علل رواج و تطور آن دیدگاههایی بدیع دارد و مثالهای فراوان و جالبی هم در اختیار گذاشته است. بااینحال، نمیتوان از دو اشکال بنیادین موجود در آن ساده گذشت. اول اینکه، با وجود منابع و دستاوردهای علمی متعددی که در زمینهی دیرینانسانشناسی تطوری، بهخصوص در سالهای اخیر منتشر شده است (و زبانشناس فقید امریکایی به نام بیکرتون بهخوبی از آن آگاهی داشته و حتی خود نیز در ارتقاء آنها کوشیده است)، این کتاب فاقد کردارشناسی تطوری زبان در انسان است. برای مثال، به این موضوع اشاره نمیشود که شکارچی-گردآورندگان هومو ارکتوس یا حتی پیش از آن هوموهابیلیسها کدام ویژگیهای کردارشناختی را داشته��ند که وجود و بهرهگیری از زبان نزد آنها امری اجتنابناپذیر محسوب میشده است (ادبیات این حوزه آنقدرها هم فقیر نیست). دومین اشکال بنیادین این کتاب هم به فقدان زمینههای ملموس و لنگرگاههای مادی دخیل در تکوین و تکامل فرهنگی زبان مربوط میشود. بهجرأت میتوان گفت، فن و زبان، مواد فرهنگی و زبان و مصنوعاتِ مادی و زبانی همسو و همراستا با یکدیگر رشد و توسعه مییابند. زمینههای عصبشناختی و شناختی مهارتهای دستی و زبانی نیز نسبتی در هم تنیده با هم دارند (و اتفاقی نیست که ابتدا تخنه در معنای مهارت توسط ارسطو به فنِ بیان اطلاق میشود). نفسِ ادا-بازی انسانی در وضعیتهای محیط مادی او ریشه دارد و اگر آن را ریشهی زبان در نظر بگیریم، بدون تأملات باستانشناختی و نظرافکنی بر زمینههای مادّی تکوین و تطور زبان، هرگونه نظرپردازی در این حوزه ناقص خواهد بود؛ هرچند همچون این کتاب، جذاب، خواندنی و روشنگر باشد.
کسانی که میکوشند تا در ظاهر به تبعیت از چارلز داروین، با جستجو در میان نظامهای ارتباطی عام جانوری، همهی آنها را طیفهایی تکاملی در نظر بیاورند که در نهایت به صورت زبانِ انسانی در میآید، تقریباً همانها هستند که به هر دلیل میخواهند با زدایش انحصار زبان، انسان را از برج عاج غرور و سرکشیاش پائین بکشند (البته که من با این کار مخالفتی ندارم!) صورتِ دیگر چنین انگیزهای آن است که از واقعیات جهان انسان-زدایی شود و بیگمان با زدایش انسان، آن خدایی هم که در ابتدا «بیان» را به وی بخشید، عملاً از میان برود (نیچهی زبانشناس درست روی همین زمین است که از آباء کلیسایی خویش میگسلد!) اگر زبانِ انسان تنها شکل تکاملیافتهای از همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانیِ دیگر باشد و طیفی (هرچند پیشرفتهتر) از همانها، پس برای توجیه حضور آن نه به مداخلهی خدا نیاز است و نه به یک ساحت متافیزیکی (مثلاً صورتِ افلاطونی) که روی واقعیت فیزیکیِ حیوانیت انسان بنشیند و او را از مقامِ پستِ حیوانی به درجهی اعلای انسانی، چنان ارتقاء ببخشد که یارای همصحبتیاش با خدا[یان] باشد.
در مقابل این گروهِ «تدریجیگرا»، همان گروه خدا/انسانگرا را داریم که جانِ کلامشان آن است که زبان متعلق به خداست و انسانِ بدونِ بیان، چیزی جز یک حیوانیتِ محض نیست و نمیتواند باشد. عبارتِ ارسطویی «انسان حیوانِ ناطق است» نزد این گروه آهنگ بهمراتب خوشالحانتری دارد تا نزد آن گروهِ پیشین که جان کلامشان چیزی شبیه به این عبارت میتواند باشد که «زبان یک خصلتِ حیوانی است».
اما واقعاً منشأ زبان در انسان چیست؟ هر کسی حتی اگر از دور دستی بر آتشِ زبانِ انسان گرفته باشد، حرارتِ بیبدیلیِ حیرتانگیز آن را بهوضوح احساس خواهد کرد. هر چه بکوشیم، در میان همهی نظامهای ارتباطی جانوری، تنها انسان از این قابلیت ارتباطی منحصربهفرد برخوردار است. از این گذشته، اتفاقاً وجود زبان موجب نشد که بقیهی نظامهای ارتباطی دیگر در انسان به حالت تعطیل درآید. برای مثال ما هنوز از طریق ترشحات شیمیایی، فیزیکی، شبه/آغاز-زبانی، بارها بیآنکه نسبت بدان حتی خودآگاه هم باشیم، پیامهایی را به یکدیگر منتقل میکنیم. ازینگذشته، جنس پیامهایی که از طریق زبان منتقل میشود به طور قابل توجهی متمایز از پیامهایی است که از طریق دیگر نظامها منتقل میشود. مثلاً ما با زبان میتوانیم به انتقال پیامهایی دربارهی موضوعات غایب بپردازیم؛ چیزهایی که در لحظهی سخنگفتن از آنها، خودشان حضور ندارند. همچنین بخش عمدهای از استفادههای زبانی ما در زندگی روزمره و بهنحوی اجدادی، عموماً کاربردهای غیبت، تمسخر، بذله، فریب و نیرگ داشته است و هنوز هم دارد. همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانی البته حدی از فریفتن و نیرنگزدن و استتار را در خود دارند. درست است که گلِ ارکیده به شکل حشرات ماده در میآید تا نرها را برای گردهافشانی نزد خود بکشاند، اما این فریفتن بخشی از فیلوژنی-اونتوژنی آن به شمار میآید و به عبارتی، غنچهی ارکیده نمیتواند تصمیم بگیرد که مثلاً «دیگر فریبکاری بس است و من دیگر نمیخواهم مثل والدینم شبیه حشرات بزرگ شوم و شکل و شمایل آنها را به خودم بگیرم!!» تقریباً همهی نظامهای ارتباطی حیوانی حتی در فریبندگی خودشان الگو و مبنایی صادقانه و راست دارند. درحالیکه زبانِ آدمی کاملاً برعکس عمل میکند: حتی در صادقنمایانهترین حالت خود میتواند کاملاً گمراهکننده و فریبکارانه باشد؛ مثلاً آنجا که میکوشیم تا شخص را نسبت به وجودِ واقعی خدای آپولو و خصوصیتها و ویژگیهای او کاملاً متقاعد و آن خدا را امری راستین قلمداد کنیم.
پیشرفت علم نوین و بهخصوص کشف «ژن» موجب شد تا یک جریان سوم هم شکل بگیرد و بکوشد تا آراء خود را با ابزارهای علمی نوین تجهیز کند. این عده قبول دارند که زبان انسان امری منحصربهفرد است؛ اما قبول ندارند که از جانب خدا یا عالم مثل بر انسان نازل شده باشد. مسئولیت زبان را به «جهش» ناگهانی یک ژن خاص در نقطهی زمانیِ مشخصی از تاریخ تطوّر انسان نسبت میدهند. برجستهترین این اشخاص نوآم چامسکی است که متأسفانه، و تأکید میکنم متأسفانه آراء او تا همین امروز و در بیشتر موارد بهنحوی کورکورانه توسط دانشجویان و اساتید زبانشناسی دپارتمانهای مختلف دنیا وحی منزل تلقی میشود. اما برمبنای شواهد دیرینانسانشناختی، ژنتیک و باستانشناختی و همانطور که نویسندگان کتاب ارزشمند «بازی زبان؛ چگونه حاضرجوابی موجب آفرینش زبان شد و جهان را تغییر داد»، یعنی مورتن اچ. کریستینسن و نیک چِیتر نشان دادهاند، نه تنها چنین ژنی وجود خارجی نداشته و ندارد، بلکه بنابر اصول و قواعد تطور زیستشناختی، هرگز وجود نیز نخواهد داشت. آنها نشان میدهند که آن «دستورزبان جهانشمول» که در هر نوزاد انسانی به ودیعه گذاشته میشود از اساس یک توهم محض است و هیچ دو زبان انسانی را نمیتوان از هیچ جنبهای با هم برابر یا حتی به طور دقیق قابل مقایسه عین به عین دانست. حتی مثالهای متنوعی میآورند از اینکه خلاف نظریهی زایشیِ چامسکی، کودکان آنقدر هم که گفته میشود مستعد یادگیری زبانهای مختلف نیستند و برای مثال، کودکان دانمارکی تا زمانی که ۹۵ سالگی را هم رد کنند، هرگز به طور کامل بر زبان مادری خود که دانمارکی باشد نمیتوانند مسلط بشوند؛ حالآنکه همانها ممکن است انگلیسی معیار را با چند گویش و لهجه مثل بلبل بگویند و بخوانند و بنویسند. مشکل از کمهوشی دانمارکیها نیست؛ زبان دانمارکی شکل خاصی از زبان است که هرگونه یادگیری و محفوظداشتنِ جدای از سیاقها و بافتهای عملی و کنشیِ زندگی روزمره را پس میزند!
کریستینسن و چِیتر در کتاب «بازی زبان» نظریهای جالب و بسیار بامسماتر را در اختیار میگذارند. آنها با مقایسهی جایگاه، وجود، ماهیت و کاربرد زبان نزد انسانها با «ادا-بازی» (همانکه در عرف پانتومیم میخوانیم؛ حدسزدن واژهها از طریق اجرای حرکاتِ بدنی مشخص)، زایش زبان را دقیقاً ریشه در همین نوع بازی میدانند. به نظر آنها، ژست و حرکات بدنی همانقدر در رشد زبان نزد انسان بنیادین است که اصوات و صداها؛ و این هر دو، به قول ویتگنشتاین، تنها زمانی به زبان واقعی ختم میشوند که در سیاق اجرایی/کرداری بازیهای روزمره ظاهر شوند. فقط تصوّر کنید آن شکارچی پارینهسنگی قدیم را که از طریق ادا-بازی (مرکب از پیشا-واژگان و ژستهای بدنی) میخواهد نحوهی درست ساختن یک ابزار سنگی را به نوآموز خود یاد بدهد! برای همین حتی فرهنگهای لغت هم جلوی هر واژهای چندین و چند مترادف و متضاد مینشانند؛ چون هیچ کلمهای، حتی اگر معنایش کاملاً روشن و بدیهی به نظر برسد، هیچ معنایی ندارد مگر آنکه اجرا شود.
زبان یک محصول فرهنگی نزد انسانها است که در جریان تکامل فرهنگی این موجود تکامل یافته و روبهپیشرفت گذاشته است. البته که میان استفاده از زبان و زیستشناسی و ژنتیک انسان ارتباط مستقیم وجود دارد. شاید بتوان این نکته را با مثالی به شکل روشنتر بیان کرد. پرندگانی به نام «رنگینک بالچخماقی» وجود دارند که با برهمزدن شتابان بالهایشان موجب ایجاد صداهای دلنوازی از آنها میشوند که مادهها را به خود جلب میکند. آنها فاقد هرگونه ژن برای این کار هستند و این بالزدنهای صدادارشان را از نسلی به نسل دیگر منتقل میکنند. دیرینزیستشناسان نشان دادهاند که اجداد رنگینک بالچخماقی عادت به این کار نداشتند و این پرنده در نقطهای از تطور خویش بهشکلی «فرهنگی» این رفتار را آغاز کرده و ادامه داده است. اما همین بالزدنهای صدادار موجب شده است تا برخی از استخوانهای بال این پرندگان نسل به نسل تحلیل برود؛ زیرا به مرور باعث تغییرات اپیژنتیک (دگرگونیهای منبعث از محیط در چیدمان کدهای ژنتیک) در بالها شده است. درست است که تنها نرهای رنگینک بالچخماقی برای ایجاد صداهای دلنواز بال میزنند، اما این ضعف استخوانی برای پرواز از طریق توارث اپیژنتیک، به مادهها هم منتقل شده و پیشبینی میشود اگر رنگینکها همچنان به این رفتار خود ادامه بدهند، تا چندین نسل دیگر توانایی خود را برای پروازکردن بهطور کامل از دست میدهند.
زبان هم همین خصلت را دارد. اینکه شامپانزهها از قابلیتهای صوتی آنچنانی برخوردار نیستند درحالی که شجریان با پیچیدهترین حالت ممکن از حلق خود صدای چهچهه بیرون میدهد، به معنای وجود جهاز صوتی بیسابقه در او نسبت به شامپانزهها نیست، بلکه نشانهی همتطوری ژن-فرهنگی در ما است که در طول چندین و چند نسل، حلق و حنجرهمان را به چیزی فراتر از جهاز تنفسی-تغذیهای تطور داده است. بارها اتفاق افتاده و هنوز هم خواهد افتاد که یک رفتار فرهنگی با منشأ و تطور فرهنگی، بنیانهای زیستشناختی گونهی انسان (و گونههای دیگر، هر یک به نحو خاص خودشان) را دستخوش تغییر و تطور ساخته است.
این کتاب در رابطه با منشأ زبان و عوامل و علل رواج و تطور آن دیدگاههایی بدیع دارد و مثالهای فراوان و جالبی هم در اختیار گذاشته است. بااینحال، نمیتوان از دو اشکال بنیادین موجود در آن ساده گذشت. اول اینکه، با وجود منابع و دستاوردهای علمی متعددی که در زمینهی دیرینانسانشناسی تطوری، بهخصوص در سالهای اخیر منتشر شده است (و زبانشناس فقید امریکایی به نام بیکرتون بهخوبی از آن آگاهی داشته و حتی خود نیز در ارتقاء آنها کوشیده است)، این کتاب فاقد کردارشناسی تطوری زبان در انسان است. برای مثال، به این موضوع اشاره نمیشود که شکارچی-گردآورندگان هومو ارکتوس یا حتی پیش از آن هوموهابیلیسها کدام ویژگیهای کردارشناختی را داشته��ند که وجود و بهرهگیری از زبان نزد آنها امری اجتنابناپذیر محسوب میشده است (ادبیات این حوزه آنقدرها هم فقیر نیست). دومین اشکال بنیادین این کتاب هم به فقدان زمینههای ملموس و لنگرگاههای مادی دخیل در تکوین و تکامل فرهنگی زبان مربوط میشود. بهجرأت میتوان گفت، فن و زبان، مواد فرهنگی و زبان و مصنوعاتِ مادی و زبانی همسو و همراستا با یکدیگر رشد و توسعه مییابند. زمینههای عصبشناختی و شناختی مهارتهای دستی و زبانی نیز نسبتی در هم تنیده با هم دارند (و اتفاقی نیست که ابتدا تخنه در معنای مهارت توسط ارسطو به فنِ بیان اطلاق میشود). نفسِ ادا-بازی انسانی در وضعیتهای محیط مادی او ریشه دارد و اگر آن را ریشهی زبان در نظر بگیریم، بدون تأملات باستانشناختی و نظرافکنی بر زمینههای مادّی تکوین و تطور زبان، هرگونه نظرپردازی در این حوزه ناقص خواهد بود؛ هرچند همچون این کتاب، جذاب، خواندنی و روشنگر باشد.
June 18, 2022
It is always interesting to read (listen to) books regarding linguistics in my second language - and by reading this book I understood that it is an amazing human ability. This book boosts my motivation to learn more languages.
February 14, 2022
This was a fascinating read, covering all the different ways in which language evolves, and all the factors that come into play to show that evolution. Well illustrated where a concept needed to be, and done with the intention of showing how each point works, particularly when you look at how a simple emotional decision can make all the difference between what you see and what you feel that you see.
This book is well researched and all the points are condensed to make them accessible without losing the context, which for a book on language, was everything that it should have been. It covers the nature of how language illuminates and how it obfuscates. I write for a living, so being able to read how language differs from region to region, how there are constants and contraries, was a delight.
This is an excellent insight into how language works
This book is well researched and all the points are condensed to make them accessible without losing the context, which for a book on language, was everything that it should have been. It covers the nature of how language illuminates and how it obfuscates. I write for a living, so being able to read how language differs from region to region, how there are constants and contraries, was a delight.
This is an excellent insight into how language works
October 9, 2025
4.5 stars. A book that put a pleasantly thought-provoking framing on a bunch of cognitive science facts I was mostly already familiar with. This is by authors I'd read back in grad school and liked the work of, so I went in positively biased toward the book and already predicting many points they would make. But I still found it a refreshing and often compelling read, though I don't completely agree with some conclusions. (And even though I think their brief epilogical take on LLMs is a bit overly simplistic, it's interesting to ponder why I think that, since I find most of their points persuasive.)
Despite my liking it, I'm not sure I'd broadly rec it... I feel like I may be the ~perfect audience for a bunch of this - someone who was taught enough about a bunch of the relevant academic debates (around topics like universal grammar and the domain-specific/domain-general nature of language) to find this theory satisfying rather than esoteric, and someone who has been out of the field long enough to appreciate a refresher. It also doesn't have the captivating tone of a writer like Pinker (who is generally a fun read even when I disagree or think he's glossing over important points). I think I'd mostly recommend it to people with some academic background in the field.
(Then again, I know enough about the field to have found some bits of this slightly tedious and others overly shallow. Minus a star for being imperfectly suited to my own personal desires; plus half a star for teaching me about how Danish is weird and a few other fun new-to-me facts. ;) )
A final caveat: I haven't read much cog sci in about 15 years, so I don't know the current landscape very well.
Despite my liking it, I'm not sure I'd broadly rec it... I feel like I may be the ~perfect audience for a bunch of this - someone who was taught enough about a bunch of the relevant academic debates (around topics like universal grammar and the domain-specific/domain-general nature of language) to find this theory satisfying rather than esoteric, and someone who has been out of the field long enough to appreciate a refresher. It also doesn't have the captivating tone of a writer like Pinker (who is generally a fun read even when I disagree or think he's glossing over important points). I think I'd mostly recommend it to people with some academic background in the field.
(Then again, I know enough about the field to have found some bits of this slightly tedious and others overly shallow. Minus a star for being imperfectly suited to my own personal desires; plus half a star for teaching me about how Danish is weird and a few other fun new-to-me facts. ;) )
A final caveat: I haven't read much cog sci in about 15 years, so I don't know the current landscape very well.
May 6, 2022
Really interesting insight into the history and cognition of language, and furthermore, how language data can be interpreted by different kinds of intelligence.
Audiobook ALC via Libro.fm! But I think I'll be getting the physical book, too. It was just so interesting and contained a lot of references.
Audiobook ALC via Libro.fm! But I think I'll be getting the physical book, too. It was just so interesting and contained a lot of references.
Want to Read
December 1, 2022DMPL EXAMINED 22_12_01 GAME = IMAGINATION?
August 8, 2023
As a one-time linguist, I'm always interested in books about language. The Language Game is the latest attempt to address the question of how and why humans became language users. Where did language come from — is it just a natural byproduct of intelligence, or is there something special about humans besides our intelligence? After all, animals can (to a very limited extent) learn language, and they even communicate amongst themselves non-linguistically. Why are there so many languages, and why are some of them so very alien to one another? Why can some languages be learned more easily than others, and why are children little language-absorbing sponges who acquire language so much faster than adults, even though their brains are far less developed?
The basic premise of the The Language Game is that language evolution and acquisition is a process of improvisation, a kind of advanced game of charades in which the participants construct meaning interactively. This is in contrast to the two major linguistic theorists of today, Noam Chomsky and Stephen Pinker. Chomsky, famous for his "transformational grammar," argues that every language has a "deep structure" of generative rules which infants acquire intuitively and adult learners try to learn explicitly. Stephen Pinker, on the other hand, argues that language is a product of evolution: according to this theory, there is a "universal grammar" that is literally biological in nature, and all languages are the products of linguistic structures hardwired into our brains.
Christiansen and Chater claim that instead, humans construct meaning by signaling to each other using words and gestures and other communicative tools until understanding is conveyed, and over time, these various signals are regularized into a mutually comprehensible language. He begins with various crude illustrations of this idea, the development of pidgin dialects, or the early efforts of Captain Cook to communicate with Pacific islanders, and similar encounters between people from cultures with no language or history in common.
The idea of language as a game of charades is interesting, though I can't really say if Christiansen and Chater have a stronger argument than Chomsky and Pinker. The authors talk a lot about the differences between human and animal communication, comparing the ability of animals to learn the meaning of some words, birds that imitate human speech, and great apes that can learn sign language. As the book points out, even the most impressive examples of animal communication come nowhere near the expressiveness or sophistication of humans; animals cannot talk about the past or speculate about the future, they cannot construct descriptions of unfamiliar objects or concepts, they are not capable of metaphor or poetry or puns or even conditional statements.
I didn't think there was a lot new here, but I've read lots of books about language. If you already know about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or the Indo-European language family tree and non-Indo European languages, or you've heard "Eskimos have a hundred words for snow" debunked repeatedly, then a lot of the padding in this book will be old material, but it's still interesting to see what linguists are still trying to figure out, after decades of Chomskyan grammar.
The basic premise of the The Language Game is that language evolution and acquisition is a process of improvisation, a kind of advanced game of charades in which the participants construct meaning interactively. This is in contrast to the two major linguistic theorists of today, Noam Chomsky and Stephen Pinker. Chomsky, famous for his "transformational grammar," argues that every language has a "deep structure" of generative rules which infants acquire intuitively and adult learners try to learn explicitly. Stephen Pinker, on the other hand, argues that language is a product of evolution: according to this theory, there is a "universal grammar" that is literally biological in nature, and all languages are the products of linguistic structures hardwired into our brains.
Christiansen and Chater claim that instead, humans construct meaning by signaling to each other using words and gestures and other communicative tools until understanding is conveyed, and over time, these various signals are regularized into a mutually comprehensible language. He begins with various crude illustrations of this idea, the development of pidgin dialects, or the early efforts of Captain Cook to communicate with Pacific islanders, and similar encounters between people from cultures with no language or history in common.
The idea of language as a game of charades is interesting, though I can't really say if Christiansen and Chater have a stronger argument than Chomsky and Pinker. The authors talk a lot about the differences between human and animal communication, comparing the ability of animals to learn the meaning of some words, birds that imitate human speech, and great apes that can learn sign language. As the book points out, even the most impressive examples of animal communication come nowhere near the expressiveness or sophistication of humans; animals cannot talk about the past or speculate about the future, they cannot construct descriptions of unfamiliar objects or concepts, they are not capable of metaphor or poetry or puns or even conditional statements.
I didn't think there was a lot new here, but I've read lots of books about language. If you already know about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or the Indo-European language family tree and non-Indo European languages, or you've heard "Eskimos have a hundred words for snow" debunked repeatedly, then a lot of the padding in this book will be old material, but it's still interesting to see what linguists are still trying to figure out, after decades of Chomskyan grammar.
December 1, 2022
Beyond Chomsky: His theory of Universal Grammar held sway in linguistics for decades. Noam Chomsky did important work and asked questions no one had asked before, but his UG theory is looking shaky these days. In fact, grammar now appears to be more a handy artifact of language than its foundation (advances in AI have shown that computers can produce grammatical sentences without any grammatical rules being programmed in).
The authors reject the Chomsky model, instead seeing language as a messy, interactive, and improvisational process. Spoken language tends to zig zag, with speakers completing others' sentences, veering off, and filling in gaps with hand gestures. Languages vary widely around the world and some lack features (such as recursion) that the Chomsky model assumed to be foundational.
Words themselves often have fuzzy meanings that depend on context (something that philosophers have been bothered by for ages). One example noted by the authors: Think of "open the door" and "walk through the door." We have no problem understanding either of these sentences. Yet the word "door" actually refers to two different things here. When you open a door, you push on a solid object. But when you walk through the door, the door vanishes and becomes simply a frame outlining an empty space. We don't even notice the change in reference unless we happen to be Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Language is humanity's greatest invention, without which advanced culture would have been impossible. But how did it get started? Why didn't chimpanzees develop it? No one knows for sure, though anthropologists have found some clues. Humans are accomplished imitators and collaborators -- and we very much depend on cultural learning for survival. That may be because our ancestors ventured (or were pushed) into harsher and more varied environments than forest-dwelling chimpanzees occupied. Social cooperation probably became a must for us -- and efficient communication would have made that much easier.
Early forms of language were probably crude and halting. But once language caught on, there must have been tremendous evolutionary pressure to become ever better at using it. Which is probably what drove our brains to swell to the limit of our foremothers' birth canals.
In an epilogue, the authors consider the implications of those grammar-proficient supercomputers. Do advances in AI mean they'll take over the world soon? The authors think not, and they're probably right. Why exactly would a computer want to take over? What would it mean for a computer to even want anything? We have conscious minds (and their attendant desires) because natural selection created them for us over millions of years. Without that evolutionary history, it's not clear how a computer would develop a human-like mind capable of desiring world domination or able to achieve it when confronted by wily humans who could distract it with nonsense questions like (quoting an example from the book) "How many rainbows does it take to jump from Hawaii to 17?" The computer promptly answered that it took two rainbows. I, for one, welcome the opportunity to taunt our computer overlords.
The authors reject the Chomsky model, instead seeing language as a messy, interactive, and improvisational process. Spoken language tends to zig zag, with speakers completing others' sentences, veering off, and filling in gaps with hand gestures. Languages vary widely around the world and some lack features (such as recursion) that the Chomsky model assumed to be foundational.
Words themselves often have fuzzy meanings that depend on context (something that philosophers have been bothered by for ages). One example noted by the authors: Think of "open the door" and "walk through the door." We have no problem understanding either of these sentences. Yet the word "door" actually refers to two different things here. When you open a door, you push on a solid object. But when you walk through the door, the door vanishes and becomes simply a frame outlining an empty space. We don't even notice the change in reference unless we happen to be Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Language is humanity's greatest invention, without which advanced culture would have been impossible. But how did it get started? Why didn't chimpanzees develop it? No one knows for sure, though anthropologists have found some clues. Humans are accomplished imitators and collaborators -- and we very much depend on cultural learning for survival. That may be because our ancestors ventured (or were pushed) into harsher and more varied environments than forest-dwelling chimpanzees occupied. Social cooperation probably became a must for us -- and efficient communication would have made that much easier.
Early forms of language were probably crude and halting. But once language caught on, there must have been tremendous evolutionary pressure to become ever better at using it. Which is probably what drove our brains to swell to the limit of our foremothers' birth canals.
In an epilogue, the authors consider the implications of those grammar-proficient supercomputers. Do advances in AI mean they'll take over the world soon? The authors think not, and they're probably right. Why exactly would a computer want to take over? What would it mean for a computer to even want anything? We have conscious minds (and their attendant desires) because natural selection created them for us over millions of years. Without that evolutionary history, it's not clear how a computer would develop a human-like mind capable of desiring world domination or able to achieve it when confronted by wily humans who could distract it with nonsense questions like (quoting an example from the book) "How many rainbows does it take to jump from Hawaii to 17?" The computer promptly answered that it took two rainbows. I, for one, welcome the opportunity to taunt our computer overlords.
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