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Robbins Burling, The talking ape: How language evolved

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2007

Julia Deák
Julia Deák
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, jdeak@dolphin.upenn.edu
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Abstract

Robbins Burling, The talking ape: How language evolved. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 286. Hb $30.00.

Among those who theorize about the evolution of language, there are several camps, including those who argue that language evolved slowly from primate gesture-calls, and those who surmise that syntax is so complicated that it must have come from a single genetic mutation. Robbins Burling agrees fully with neither and argues that language is a separate system from gesture-calls, but that language did evolve slowly through natural and sexual selection. He invites us to look at the social uses of language and the cultural value of its complicated, embellished nature.

Type
BOOK NOTES
Information
Language in Society , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 139 - 140
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

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