The Story of Human Language

De: John McWhorter, The Great Courses

Narrado por: John McWhorter

Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct. Now you can explore all of these questions and more in an in-depth series of 36 lectures from one of America's leading linguists.

You'll be witness to the development of human language, learning how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today and gaining an appreciation of the remarkable ways in which one language sheds light on another.

The many fascinating topics you examine in these lectures include: the intriguing evidence that links a specific gene to the ability to use language; the specific mechanisms responsible for language change; language families and the heated debate over the first language; the phenomenon of language mixture; why some languages develop more grammatical machinery than they actually need; the famous hypothesis that says our grammars channel how we think; artificial languages, including Esperanto and sign languages for the deaf; and how word histories reflect the phenomena of language change and mixture worldwide.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2004 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2004 The Great Courses

Easy to listen to; a few errors

For the most part, this course is entertaining for those who enjoy fine details of how languages develop and why they are so different. The depth of detail and the speaker's knowledge of so many language structures, and his ability to reproduce sounds, is remarkable.
I have one objection. In his efforts to be entertaining as well as informative, he speaks glibly, and occasionally incorrectly, about how or why some language oddity came to be. I particularly noticed this in the lecture on genders. He jokes quite a bit about the seeming absurdity of assigning masculine/feminine/neuter genders to inanimate objects, and even (in one example) assigning a neuter gender to the German word for "little girl." But he surely knows - and should have emphasized - that the le/la or der/die/das "genders" are merely grammatical markers for various classes of nouns that have nothing to do with a perceived sexuality of that object, and that some grammarian hundreds, even thousands, of years after the fact assigned the terms "masculine/feminine/neuter" to those markers as a way of naming the noun classes. One perfect example of this is the use of "das" for the German word for "little girl." He tosses off the assumption that the Germanic culture perceives little girls as being without sexual identity until "a certain age." This is absurd. The word is neuter because any German noun with the diminutive suffix "chen" or "lein" is automatically assigned the noun marker "das," regardless of the gender of the original noun. A linguist, or at least an etymologist, would know this and should not imply otherwise.
Beyond that occasional problem, however, the course is quite comprehensive and very easy to listen to.

Fascinating Professor

At first, I thought the professor was racist because he was able to talk about black language and debunk some of its myths so confidently and un-PC like by today's standards. Then I looked him up and saw he was African American. I was so happy that this course wasn't given by an old white guy but by an extremely articulate person curious about the world and it's languages who has experienced and learned by living, not just by studying language only through insular textbooks and incestuous universities. He brings life experiences (childhood, dating, and sometimes repulsive attitude toward egomaniacs in academia) and shares the information in an approchable way. There's little banal, specific etymology of words themselves but instead, he includes a whole lot of creativity and overarching history of language. It took me several months to complete the course but I did complete every chapter. Well worth the information. It was entertaining and informational.

Entertainingly thorough.

I most enjoyed the professor's accent. The course I felt was very thorough but also very entertaining.well worth the time

Good course but slow

I enjoyed this course. The author and reader really knows his stuff. After 36 lessons I was hoping to know more about language than this course offers so it is a bit slow.

Excellent overview of languages

If you have an interest in human language this is great! It's academic for sure, but very well done and kept me interested throughout. There were a few topics that I wish he had gone deeper into, but this "scratched my itch" for learning more.

Fascinating Lecture Series if Your Into Language

Speaking as someone that's curious about the origin of words and really tried in college Spanish, this is an excellent introduction to linguistics and provides some interesting perspectives of how language (or collections of dialects) forms, interacts, mutates, and dies over time. The professor has a playful wit to his teaching-style, making this a fun read regardless.
My one regret was it wasn't an actual college class, because I noticed some doging around how middle and modern English's origins mirror creoles and I'm dying to ask if they are considered to be creoles.

Awesome!

I love history and I love languages and this course melds them both together very well. Presentation is phenomenal as well very engaging. This unquestionably improved my speaking skills as well. It's so helpful to know the underlying principles behind some the common challenges faced by English speakers when learning a foreign language as well. I found it quite fascinating and that was a big take-away for me in this course. I'm also much less of a grammar snob now!

Fabulous intro to the subject

I had never taken a course in linguistics and didn't know what to expect. This course was elegantly structured and easy to follow. I learned a great deal and enjoyed every minute.

interesting doesn't seem to cover it

this may look like a really long recording, but it's totally worth your time. understanding the dynamics of how language has come to be and continues to evolve is quite fascinating

A must if you find languages interesting

The author is a funny and eloquent speaker who can explain it in a way everyone can understand. Really enjoyed this series!