The evolution of language /

This book is an important contribution to the literature on language evolution. Fitch (Univ. of Vienna, Austria), an evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist, dedicates half of his tome to evolutionary theory, cognition and communication in animals, and human prehistory. He strongly believes that human language is a composite system. As he states, many components of language are shared with other vertebrates, each with its own history, and each of these "bag of tricks" is pieced together by evolutionary "tinkering" (lineage-specific directional selection, to avoid Gouldian attempts for nonselectional explanations). The combination of complex imitative vocalization and syntax makes human language unique; Darwin brilliantly pioneered these evolutionary stages in 1871. That insight--that the composite ability to vocalize and imitate sounds predated speech with syntax--has simply not been recognized by most anthropologists as a preadaptive condition (without teleological implications) to a group-specific shared language. To Fitch's credit, he accepts the major outline of Darwin's multiple-stage explanation of language evolution, but he also reviews the vast literature really peripheral to the basic historical and functional biology of human language. This work, although too long, is a major achievement. An abbreviated version would better suit a general readership. Summing Up: Essential. Academic libraries, all levels. F. S. Szalay University of New Mexico