RSSLanguage in Prehistory
Feb 24
Title: Language in Prehistory
Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
http://cambridge.org
Book URL: http://bit.ly/1RZDhQK
Author: Alan Barnard
Paperback: ISBN: 9781107692596 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 24.99
Paperback: ISBN: 9781107692596 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 17.99
Abstract:
For ninety per cent of our history, humans have lived as ‘hunters and
gatherers’, and for most of this time as talking individuals. No direct
evidence for the origin and evolution of language exists; we do not even know
if early humans had language, either spoken or signed. Taking an
anthropological perspective, Alan Barnard acknowledges this difficulty and
argues that we can nevertheless infer a great deal about our linguistic past
from what is around us in the present. Hunter-gatherers still inhabit much of
the world, and in sufficient number to enable us to study the ways in which
they speak, the many languages they use, and what they use them for. Barnard
investigates the lives of hunter-gatherers by understanding them in their own
terms, to create a book which will be welcomed by all those interested in the
evolution of language.
1. Introduction; 2. Population diversity and language diversity; 3. What did
prehistoric people do?; 4. How did prehistoric people think?; 5. Narratives of
the every-day; 6. Mythological narratives; 7. Sexual selection and language
evolution; 8. Conclusions and thoughts for the future.
Recent Comments