The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention

This book is a great resource if you're a conlanger working on a naturalistic language and you're unsure how to derive or develop a certain feature in your language. Deutscher goes over the historical development of just about every kind of grammatical feature under the sun, and is even honest about when a certain feature has too obscure of a past to explain how it got there. The only gripe that I have, and it's quite a small one, is that he doesn't go over the how and why of changes in word order (but he does talk about how word order affects the positions of relative clauses, adpositions, possessive markers and other grammatical elements). The book is very accessible and written in a way that even non-linguists can understand, not bogged down by so much linguistic jargon. There's also a very impressive chapter on the ways in which the system of triconsonantal roots could've developed in Semitic languages.

Understandable, readable, but best of all, enjoyable explanation of the destructive and creative forces acting upon language. This book will convey you a "big picture" of how our present languages could have evolved into their present state and is mainly aimed at the interested layperson or at beginner students of linguistics, not for specialists (or maybe for those specialists that would like to read an overview of their science field from a humorful perspective). The destruction of language structures, as well as the creation of new ones is explained with very illustrative examples taken fom a wide variety of languages and from different historic periods. (Other reviewers have already explained the involved forces). Most 20th/21st century linguists believe that the same forces that acted on prehistoric languages should be the same forces at play now, so by observing present (or at least more or less recent) language changes we should be able to understand the forces that shaped our current languages. Creative changes are harder to observe than destructive ones, since it is easier to observe a present irregularity and look for its origin in the past (the action of a destructive force) than to look at something that looks regular now and imagine that sometime in the past it was irregular. Therefore, the only way to observe such creative processes is by noting an irregularity in some old text, which has somehow become regular in the present. This difficulty gave rise to the widespread idea among 19th century experts that language was only decaying. Although linguists have finally managed to observe some creative phenomena, these are not enough to compensate for the erosion that is evident in languages. Maybe written language and the existence of formal "grammar" and "ortography" are hindering or at least slowing down the creative processes. Linguists still do not know if this situation will lead us to a frightening erosion of meaning and structure in language (for example almost all noun cases existing in Proto-Indo-European, Latin and some Germanic languages are disappearing). Personally, I do not believe language will deteriorate to that point, since the very function of language (communicating meanings between individuals) would be threatened. Therefore, maybe we will reach some critical point and afterwards there will be a Cambric explosion of meaning and structure, it's a pity we will probably not witness this.

A brilliant solution to the conundrum: why does language so often proceed from more to less complex structure, as one sees in comparing Sanskrit, ancient Greek, or Latin to the derived modern languages? Filled with fascinating and informative examples of the continual and ongoing "degeneration" of language, the author is quite versed in changes in English back to the Anglo-Saxon era, as well as other Indo-European languages. I wish I had known his explanation for the origin of the system of declensions and conjugations when I was studying Latin in high school. My fascination with this question, when I later studied, French, Spanish, and German in college, is what led me to a life-long interest in philology. The author is also a native speaker of modern Hebrew and quite knowledgable in ancient Semitic languages. His explanation of the evolution of the 3-consonant root characteristic of Semitic languages is informative as well as fascinating. The only shortcoming I find is that the thesis is presented without reference to who discovered it. If it is entirely the work of the author, this should be stated; or the contributions of others should be acknowledged. It is not so much a matter of who gets the credit, as to understand the evolution of the concepts. The view he puts forth is undoubtedly quite controversial in academic circles, and one suspects that this is the reason for his omitting this aspect of the subject. Perhaps he drew the lesson from the reception given Merritt Ruhlen, who is often criticized for being overly polemical in his advocacy of Greenberg's work pointing to monogenesis. The reactionary nature of academia when confronted with a new paradigm is well-known, and as bad, or worse, in the field of philology as in any other. The author's work rates 5 stars in my view. I have reduced my review of the product review to 4 stars because of a production defect in two successive copies I received from Amazon. I returned one copy but received a replacement with the same defect-- a small pucker in all the central pages, probably caused by the fingers of the stitcher grasping too tightly. One expects a perfect copy when buying a new book. Although a minor annoyance, it did not affect the readability of the type, and is not noticeable from the outside.

I have really enjoyed the Unfolding of Language as it is a well written and stimulating book. It is easy to read and uses simple examples to advance the author's ideas. I was familiar with some of the concepts in the book beforehand which was what intrigued me to buy it, however there were still many fascinating examples and theories that I was unfamiliar with, which made it a rewarding read. As a fan of languages I found the book a wealth of information on the bizarre methods languages use to convey their meanings and how these might have come about originally. I was however surprised by some obvious omission from the book, which left me feeling that Guy was searching for answers in the distant past when examples in living language were far more revealing. A case in point is the change of p to f and f to h for which he uses the example of German "vater" compared to the Latin "pater". However far more frequent and varied changes occur in Welsh (and other celtic languages) as part of the everyday language. Welsh has a well developed system of mutations, namely soft, nasal and aspirant. The mutations may be sumarised as normal->soft->aspirant p->b->ph t->d->th c->g->ch b->f->b f->dd->d g->w->g etc. Where "dd" is pronounced as "th" in the english word "them" and "f" is pronounced as the english sound "v". This is a good example of Guy's softening of consonants. So for the Welsh speaker the concept of Grimm's Law is enshrined in their language. As such I think it makes a better example then the Latin-German example and is a curious omission form the book. In a later section of the book, Guy talks about the principle of erosion where consonants are removed over time to make the words easier to speak. Here again he makes a rather obvious omission. Scottish Gaelic has a peculiar spelling orthography which retains the old consonants long after their pronunciation has been lost. Take for example the word "leabhar" which means "book" and is similar in orthography to the Latin "liber" However the Gaelic pronunciation is "lyower", the "b" sound having been eroded by the surrounding vowels. Medial "bh" sounds are silent in Gaelic". This is not an isolated example in the language either. Examples include "adhaircean" [arkun] ="horns" ; "mathair" [ma-er] = mother. The list is endless. Finally when talking about creating grammar from changes in pronunciation, again an obvious example in Scots Gaelic springs to mind. The past tense was formed using the particle "do" as is "do buail mi" ="I struck". The "b" of "buail" was eroded because it was stuck between two vowels and so became "bh" [v]. "do bhuail mi". Eventually speakers stopped saying the "do" because the aspiration of the "b" to "bh" was sufficient to mark the past tense and in modern Gaelic "bhuail mi " is the past tense. However when the verb starts with a vowel (which can't be aspirated) the "do" remains. However the general rule of aspiration is still applied but in this case it is the "do" that aspirates to "dh" and the past tense of a verb beginning with a vowel is "dh'innis me" = "tell me". Again these are examples from a living language where these changes occur dynamically on a daily basis. It seems strange that he does not mention these important examples and chooses to search in long dead languages for proof of the theories. Having said all that I am still going to buy his other book on why language looks different to speakers of different languages. He really is an inspiring writer!

The book is excellent. It gives verisimilitude to the existence of an Indo-European language. It is not a very easy read, but the effort is worthwhile. It is a pity that on the paperback edition the cover illustration, printed on a film, ends up unglued from the paper cover curling up unsightly.

This book is about the evolution of human language, its very early developments and changes. Stronly recommendable for those who want to know how language has grown into what it is now. Many books on this subject fail to provide its full picture for readers, the reasons of which, I think, are mainly authors' weak logic, insufficient explanations, and off-the-point unbalance. This book is very readable, though its topic is a difficult one and moreover it is harder to unfold clear all those languages' tangled histories for the readers. This book covers many topics in language like case, tense, hierachical structures(embedded), and so on. The climax comes when the author begins to explain how a verb in Semitic languages, started its early developments and tranformations and ultimatly came to build up its present structure - template inflection. The template inflection looks so much elaborate and exquisite that everyone cannot help but to believe it has come from the heaven or somewhere else, not from human beings. But Deutscher guides you very kindly and carefully, to a real picture and you cannot evade a big thrill by understanding the secret. Thank you very much, Guy Deutscher. I hope you to write another wonderful book about language, as soon as possible.

This is an EXCELLENT book, extremely well-written and informed, BUT I agree 100% with what another customer said in his review: "I cannot understand how Amazon can release Kindle versions of books where some portions of the text are POSITIVELY UNREADABLE. The font is microscopic, causing the reader to have to skip some of the text. In my view this is quite inexcusable, as the technology is there to avoid the problem. This reflects at best a sense of carelessness from the people in charge of formatting the Kindle text, at worst a complete contempt toward the customer. A book SHOULD NOT BE KINDLE-RELEASED if it is not 100% readable." The biggest problem is that the font is microscopic when the author gives examples to illustrate his point--which is very often. It is literally impossible to read. DO NOT buy this otherwise excellent book in the Kindle format!!

Für mich ist dieses das wichtigste Linguistik-Buch zumindest in diesem Jahrtausend. Das vor allem als KI-Entwickler, was ich wohl erklären muß. Die derzeitige Künstliche Intelligenz leidet darunter, daß die Programme nicht wirklich und effizient Wissen erwerben können. OK, die Lernenden Algorithmen "lernen" durch Versuch und Irrtum - aber nicht so wie intelligente Menschen: durch Gespräche mit uns und durch Lesen von Büchern und anderen Texten. Einfach weil sie natürliche Sprache nicht verstehen, sondern bestenfalls so tun. Zwar versuchen wir, den Intelligenten Digitalen Objekten Sprache beizubringen. Aber das ist verdammt schwer. Jetzt wird es anders. Deutscher erklärt, wie sich Sprache entwickelt hat. Dazu verwendet er ein (geniales) linguistisches Modell. Denn die ältesten Sprachen, die wir kennen und verstehen können, Akkadisch und das alte Hebräisch, sind etwa 5000 Jahre alt. Und sie waren damals schon ziemlich fertig entwickelt - denn keiner weiß, wann und wie die ersten Menschen "die Sprache erfanden"; die zeitlichen Schätzungen dafür liegen zwischen 40 und mehr als 100 Tausend Jahre zurück. Um das für unsere Digitalen KI-Geschöpfe nachzuvollziehen, müssen wir Software-Programmierer es nacherfinden und nachprogrammieren - verdammt schwer für Amateur-Linguisten. Aber jetzt hat uns endlich ein professioneller Linguist erklärt, wie es zumindest gehen kann. Und in einer Form, daß wir es direkt in Software umsetzen können, zum Beispiel den raffinierten Mechanismus, mit dem die Hebräer ihre Verben konstruierten. Das habe ich gerade probiert, und es funktioniert sogar für ein ganz anderes linguistisches Wortschöpfungs-Problem perfekt. Auch falls Sie nicht Software entwickeln sondern einfach nur so an Sprache interessiert sind: lesen Sie das Buch trotzdem. Deutscher schreibt sehr unterhaltsam und sehr kreativ. Deshalb macht die Lektüre - wie bei seinen anderen Büchern - auch sehr viel Spaß.