David Gross’s Reviews > The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language > Status Update

I'm reading again! BOOKS!

so what if i use words to subtly communicate my social status to others, that doesn't make me a baboon!

baby dolphins babble: http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/fac...

baby dolphins babble: http://www2.eve.ucdavis.edu/gpatricel...

uch, animal brains are so cool.

Chomsky knew all along that he would have to lead a revolution in linguistics that precluded the use of evolution as a explanation for it's arrival in order to have other people do the academic legwork that would take much longer than his one, human lifespan: what a twist!

what did the ape with language, in love, say to the other ape with language? "i've gone bananas for you!" but he didn't say it; he gestured it and pointed to pictures of bananas. she pointed to a heart and smiled. i made that up, but situations that exhibit the construction of a mind via introduction of language has happened, just less romantic.

i'm reading this electronically, so i actually have no idea what page i'm on. but hopefully i can track my progress meaningfully here. now, about the book: language is awesome. i'm already sided with the "language is its own evolving organism" theory, so let's what this book does to that.