The dawn of language : how we came to talk / Sverker Johansson ; translated from the Swedish by Frank Perry.

Originally published in Swedish by Natur & Kultur, 2019.

Translated from the Swedish.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part one. On language. Human language -- Language in other creatures? -- Part two. On origins -- The other apes and us -- Explaining the characteristics of the various species and languages -- Darwin's explanation -- Heredity, environment and language -- The language-ready brain -- The cooperative ape -- Part three. On the origin of language -- The first speaker -- The first topic of conversation -- The cave man -- Cultural "man" -- The first languages -- The warp and weft of the protolanguage.

Who was "the first speaker" and what was their first message? An erudite, tightly woven and beautifully written account of one of humanity's greatest mysteries - the origins of language. Drawing on evidence from many fields, including archaeology, anthropology, neurology and linguistics, Sverker Johansson weaves these disparate threads together to show how our human ancestors evolved into language users. The Dawn of Language provides a fascinating survey of how grammar came into being and the differences or similarities between languages spoken around the world, before exploring how language eventually emerged in the very remote human past. Our intellectual and physiological changes through the process of evolution both have a bearing on our ability to acquire language. But to what extent is the evolution of language dependent on genes, or on environment? How has language evolved further, and how is it changing now, in the process of globalisation? And which aspects of language ensure that robots are not yet intelligent enough to reconstruct how language has evolved? Johansson's far-reaching, authoritative and research-based approach to language is brought to life through dozens of astonishing examples, both human and animal, in a fascinatingly erudite and entertaining volume for anyone who has ever contemplated not just why we speak the way we do, but why we speak at all -- Source other than Library of Congress.