How Language Began

Gesture and Speech in Human Evolution

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Language Arts, Linguistics, Health & Well Being, Psychology
Cover of the book How Language Began by David McNeill, Cambridge University Press
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Author: David McNeill ISBN: 9781139564540
Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication: August 30, 2012
Imprint: Cambridge University Press Language: English
Author: David McNeill
ISBN: 9781139564540
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: August 30, 2012
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Language: English

Human language is not the same as human speech. We use gestures and signs to communicate alongside, or instead of, speaking. Yet gestures and speech are processed in the same areas of the human brain, and the study of how both have evolved is central to research on the origins of human communication. Written by one of the pioneers of the field, this is the first book to explain how speech and gesture evolved together into a system that all humans possess. Nearly all theorizing about the origins of language either ignores gesture, views it as an add-on or supposes that language began in gesture and was later replaced by speech. David McNeill challenges the popular 'gesture-first' theory that language first emerged in a gesture-only form and proposes a groundbreaking theory of the evolution of language which explains how speech and gesture became unified.

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Human language is not the same as human speech. We use gestures and signs to communicate alongside, or instead of, speaking. Yet gestures and speech are processed in the same areas of the human brain, and the study of how both have evolved is central to research on the origins of human communication. Written by one of the pioneers of the field, this is the first book to explain how speech and gesture evolved together into a system that all humans possess. Nearly all theorizing about the origins of language either ignores gesture, views it as an add-on or supposes that language began in gesture and was later replaced by speech. David McNeill challenges the popular 'gesture-first' theory that language first emerged in a gesture-only form and proposes a groundbreaking theory of the evolution of language which explains how speech and gesture became unified.

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