The Language Game

How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World

By: Morten H. Christiansen, Nick Chater

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Forget the language instinct - this is the story of how we make up language as we go.

Language is perhaps humanity’s most astonishing capacity - and one that remains poorly understood. In The Language Game, cognitive scientists Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater show us where generations of scientists seeking the rules of language got it wrong. Language isn’t about hardwired grammars but about near-total freedom, something like a game of charades, with the only requirement being a desire to understand and be understood. From this new vantage point, Christiansen and Chater find compelling solutions to major mysteries like the origins of languages and how language learning is possible, and to long-running debates such as whether having two words for “blue” changes what we see. In the end, they show that the only real constraint on communication is our imagination.

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

©2022 Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater (P)2022 Basic Books

Critic reviews

"This book turned everything I thought I knew about language upside down. It's persuasive, full of fascinating details, and an absolute delight to read." (Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up)

"The Language Game is a highly original, convincing story of how humans developed their greatest invention, language. It builds on years of impressive research by Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater and shows language science at its very best. A delight to read, it deserves careful study by anyone interested in the nature, function, and origins of human communication." (Daniel Everett, author of Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes)

"A joyful romp across species and cultures through the ways language is invented and reinvented, peppered with insightful stories you will feel compelled to tell anyone in earshot." (Barbara Tversky, author of Mind in Motion)

More Like Jeopardy Than Charades

In the arena where biologists, geneticists, linguists, and other interested scientists have been trying to explain the origins and intricacies of human language, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater upend the Scrabble board, throw over all the cards in What's My Line, shoot the moon in Hearts, telling us that language is like a game of charades, no explanation possible or even necessary, total improvisation.

In fact it's less than a game of charades because there are no rules at all, including the only rule of charades, which is no vocalizing -- of course language is all about vocalizing. I posit that this book is more like a game of Jeopardy -- rather than looking for answers, it only raises more questions. Indeed, the book is less of an explanation of language than it is a series of debunkings of other explanations of language.

I have developed such an interest in linguistics via Audible, having listened to numerous titles by John McWhorter, Anne Curzan, Mark Forsyth, and others, that I now wish I studied it in college and pursued it as a career. This is the first of perhaps a dozen or so books on the subject that just left me totally out in the cold, learning nothing new on the subject.

I'm also left suspicious of the authors because of a serious omission:

I learned about myelin when my daughter's soccer coach had us all read a book about skill development. Myelin is the substance in our nervous system that insulates neural pathways that encode specific skills, from motor skills (myelin may well be the root of what we call muscle memory) to cognitive skills, to all skills really, including language acquisition.

Myelin is not mentioned once in this book (AFAIR, and I was listening for it), and I cannot fathom how that is possible in the context of this subject matter. With all the discussion in this book about genetic evolution and how it cannot explain the development of language, the authors seemed to have overlooked a critical point in failing to consider the evolution of myelin as a key stepping stone to language development (not to mention all other skill development).

But what do I know, I'm no expert, just a schmoe casting stones based on my limited reading as a dilletante.

Worth t the time and money.

I’m not a scientist but love learning about science related topics. Especially human biology and evolution. This book is worth the read!

Wonderful!

Really enjoyed this book! Informative and interesting. Language is a very fascinating subject.

Will look for more from this author!

Well Written

I like the voice of the reader and the well written book especially due to the more complex material discussed.

Trenchant. Timely. Terrific.

This is a terrific book very much worth the read on the read on an important and worthwhile topic

More an argument than an explanation.

I may have misinterpreted the description of this work. I have always been fascinated by the origins and evolution of language and I thought the authors would get into the nuts and bolts of the evolutionary process that resulted in the words we use to communicate.

While they touch on this subject glancingly while demonstrating their linguistic skills, the bulk of the book is consumed by demonstrating how their theory improves on any biological or genetic basis for this evolution.

This wasn’t what I was interested in so I will return the book. The performance was fine.The subject matter was not what I thought it would be. Three stars.***

Good

The Good : New view of linguistics using culture, charades and chunking. Novel approach that appears to have merit.

The Not So Good : Too long. Could be 4-5 hours instead of nine. Provides examples when none are needed. Then explains the unneeded examples.

Presents observations and inferences as fact.

Not much on abstract language of philosophy, math, law and related language which is detached from the physical world

Conclusion : Worth a listen, interesting perspectives

Learned a lot about language. Excellent narrator

Very good read with an excellent narrator. Would have given it a 5, but was annoyed by some redundant parts explaining several times that human language is not genetic, and by some of the ‘inside baseball’ parts of academic disagreement. Minor complaints though.

Language is Mind, Swashbuckling Bards !!

Journey of the Mind by Ogi Ogas & Sai Gaddam offers a compelling theory in line with the newest science. That Mind is words or Language. This book could substitute the word Mind for Language and it would make a powerful argument that Language is Mind, not brain but that the manifestations of words, cleanly represent Mind.

GREEK REASON gives us Mind.

The newest evolution of thought has brought agreement in many disciplines that the developing mind, Dan Siegle MeWe, Within and Between cannot exist without words. Vice versa seems apropos.

As in this book, no audio info stands reasonably opposing Mind as Language. Even these Authors presenting tectonic shifts in perspective have not seen where their mentalizing leads.

Other books are in this new dimensions of viewing our Human Group. Spontaneous human action creates societies that work, are in our Social DNA Blueprint as Spontaneous human action has given us language, trade, culture & more and more...

OMG. LOL. Great Great book by superstar Authors !!

As a linguist, I endorse this book

A good introduction to construction grammar and modern thought about language evolution. With my own background I found it a bit repetitive at times, but that’s probably an advantage for the intended audience.