Language is very important to humans. Different disciplines study language and their ideas sometimes conflict. This new book by Stephen Gislason simplifies a complex subject. The book is a must read for everyone interested in language theory. The 2008 edition is available in a print version and can be downloaded as a PDF file.

From the Introduction:

"Humans resemble other animals in their ability to communicate. Communications involve chemical senses, sounds, body language, and visual signals. Communication is all about community, sharing information, sending warning signals and fulfilling the needs of the group. Human languages combine different  kinds of communication in a complex manner. Ideas about written language tend to dominate scholarly investigations, but sounds and gestures are more important.

Humans speak naturally and spontaneously and learn the language spoken around them. Babies start to say words about 12 months. In the second year, a child develops vocabulary of about 250 words and makes simple statements.  Children use correct sentence structures by the age of three. Vocabulary increases to about 2600 words at the age of six.

Learning language is a variable and creative process. While there are sounds such as ma ma that all human babies tend to say, infants babble and coo, often inventing their own sounds. Normal children will learn to speak if they hear a language spoken; any language will do. Older infants imitate words they hear spoken and if adults engage them in conversation, will expand their vocabularies and start to make meaningful statements. 

Words go with gestures Young children point with a pudgy index finger and say the name their pointer indicates. Pointing and naming remains an endearing characteristic for the rest of a human life. Children get a lot accomplished with their pointing finger, other gestures and a few nouns. Tourists in a foreign country revert to the two-year-old strategy of pointing, naming, using pantomime to replace the verbs they do not know." 

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Language and Thought

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