ADAM'S TONGUE

Ask yourself, "How did human language get started?" You might think that it arose from animal sounds, gradually becoming more complex as brains got larger and more capable. In fact, this is how language is commonly thought to have arisen: by a smooth progression from the far simpler systems animals use to warn each other of danger, tell rivals to stay off their territory, and accomplish the other tasks required for survival.

Derek Bickerton, a linguist and expert on pidgins and creoles, disputes the point. He considers its origin the greatest problem in science.

Now, right here in this provocative book, he undertakes to unravel the mystery and to tell us how language came to be.

That's a tall order, but Doctor Bickerton is equal to the challenge he sets himself. He has, after all, been considering the problem throughout a long, active career. He's fully conversant with the relevant sciences, from paleontology to archaeology to genetics to, of course, philology. He walks us through the process of reasoning he has followed, providing plenty of citations of other scientists' work to support him. His writing style is both breezy and brusque, and he throws in plenty of pop-culture references to enliven the text. Among them are Johnny Cochran, The Matrix, Madonna and several Monty Python skits. The result is that this formidably multidisciplinary exercise becomes quite understandable to the interested layman.

But you may be wondering if his conclusions hold water. Certainly he is not one much afflicted by self-doubt; he himself describes his style as confrontational. But it is also scientific: that is, he abandons ideas when the facts no longer support them. You'll see him admit having done this several times as you follow along. So scientific integrity is not a problem. As for the meat of his answer (pun intended), I judge that it passes muster.

As I say, this is not a simple matter to discuss or to reason about; it is heavy with nuance and buttressed by reams of supporting evidence. But I will try to give you the gist of it. There are two parts to the argument.

The first part is that no animals can be shown to have anything like a language. What they have, the author calls ACSs — animal communication systems. Some have a surprising variety of cries, including warnings for different predators. What no ACS has is displacements, or cries that relate to something that is not happening then and there. This is a crucial feature of human language. If that were merely a progressive development from some ACS, there should be some animals that exhibit use of at least a rudimentary protolanguage. Yet there are none.

Part two of the answer is determining what sort of pressure might have driven our ancestors across the divide from ACS to protolanguage. The author reasons plausibly that it must have been something involving survival. He concluded that it was the change from catchment scavenging to territorial scavenging that did the trick (and a host of evidence supports this.) Modern primates do not scavenge; but they live in dense forests where food is abundant. Our ancestors faced African savannas: grassy plains where suitable food was scarce (unlike baboons, they never learned to eat grass) and predators plentiful. Marrow from bones of herbivore carcasses was available, because few other scavengers could break open the bones. Marrow was a rich source of protein, but it was low in volume. Groups that depended on it had to stay close to spots where carcasses tended to accumulate — catchments. Out across the plains were fresh carcasses, potential bonanzas. But other scavengers got to those first, and stripped them. There was one way our ancestors could supplant those other, fiercer scavengers and get at the meat: bringing in overwhelming numbers. That meant cooperation. It meant recruiting large groups. And the only way to do that was to somehow communicate where and what the prize was. No ACS could do that; it required a true language, however primitive. Once our ancestors jumped that hurdle, Bickerton proposes, they would have continually expanded the capabilities of language. Much as more capable software demanded better and faster processors in personal computers, that expansion would have driven the growth in brain size and complexity: it would have made us into modern humans.

This conclusion remains controversial. But — two or three minor quibbles aside — I think Dr. Bickerton has assembled a convincing case, and he makes following the assembly process enjoyable. The text is well organized and logical; and, scientifically, his knowledge covers palaeontology and extends from Chomsky's linguistics to B. F. Skinner's behaviorism (now debunked by Chomsky) to Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA computer program that, back in the 1960s, tried to mimic a therapeutic session with a psychiatrist and thus pass the Turing Test. (Bickerton compares one of its typical answers to a 1975 quote from Chomsky.) Frequent, drily humorous quips and the references to pop culture lighten what could have been a very arcane exposition. Top marks for Doctor B.

The Bibliography is extensive, listing 295 entries and running to 13 closely spaced pages. Chapter notes and an Index are also present. The index is very good but not perfect; It omits Johnny Cochran and Monty Python, although it includes The Matrix and the names of two songwriters from whose song the author quotes a line.

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This page was last modified on 13 March 2021.