
The Language Game
How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
About this listen
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 BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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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)
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- By: George Weigel
- Narrated by: Steven Arthur
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was the most important Catholic event in the past five hundred years. Yet sixty years after its opening on October 11, 1962, its meaning remains sharply contested and its promise unfulfilled. In To Sanctify the World, George Weigel explains the necessity of Vatican II and explores the continuing relevance of its teaching in a world seeking a deeper experience of freedom than personal willfulness.
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Fails to see how Vatican II broke with tradition
- By Amanda S on 12-20-24
By: George Weigel
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Starborn
- How the Stars Made Us (and Who We Would Be Without Them)
- By: Roberto Trotta
- Narrated by: George Weightman
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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For as long as humans have lived, we have lived beneath the stars. But under the glow of today’s artificial lighting, we have lost the intimacy our ancestors once shared with the cosmos. In Starborn, cosmologist Roberto Trotta reveals how stargazing has shaped the course of human civilization. The stars have served as our timekeepers, our navigators, our muses—they were once even our gods. How radically different would we be, Trotta also asks, if our ancestors had looked up to the night sky and seen… nothing?
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Interesting but flawed.
- By Bryan Propp on 03-02-25
By: Roberto Trotta
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Eat, Poop, Die
- How Animals Make Our World
- By: Joe Roman PhD
- Narrated by: Claire Christie
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating, pooping, and dying along the way—are its heart and arteries, pumping nitrogen and phosphorus from deep-sea gorges up to mountain peaks, from the Arctic to the Caribbean. Without this conveyor belt of crucial, life-sustaining nutrients, the world would look very different.
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Excellent!
- By Lee on 07-20-24
By: Joe Roman PhD
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Crow Planet
- Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness
- By: Lyanda Lynn Haupt
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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There are more crows now than ever. Their abundance is both an indicator of ecological imbalance and a generous opportunity to connect with the animal world. Crow Planet reminds us that we do not need to head to faraway places to encounter "nature". Rather, even in the suburbs and cities where we live we are surrounded by wild life such as crows, and through observing them we can enhance our appreciation of the world's natural order.
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Thought this would be better
- By K Dod on 09-08-20
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The Universe Speaks in Numbers
- How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the great insights of science is that the universe has an underlying order. The supreme goal of physicists is to understand this order through laws that describe the behavior of the most basic particles and the forces between them. For centuries, we have searched for these laws by studying the results of experiments. Since the 1970s, however, experiments at the world's most powerful atom-smashers have offered few new clues. So some of the world's leading physicists have looked to a different source of insight: modern mathematics.
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Great story and narration, but lacks rigor...
- By James S. on 05-31-19
By: Graham Farmelo
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The Traveler's Summit
- By: Andy Andrews
- Narrated by: Andy Andrews
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This is humanity’s last chance. Centuries of greed, pride, and hate have sent humankind hurtling toward disaster, far from our original purpose. There is only one solution that can reset the compass and right the ship, and that answer is only two words. With time running out, it’s up to David Ponder and a cast of history’s best and brightest minds to uncover this solution before it is too late. The catch? They are allowed only five tries to solve the ominous challenge.
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AMAZING!! BEST BOOK SO FAR!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-16-18
By: Andy Andrews
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How Magicians Think
- Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters
- By: Joshua Jay
- Narrated by: Joshua Jay
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The door to magic is closed, but it’s not locked. And now Joshua Jay, one of the world’s most accomplished magicians, not only opens that door but brings us inside to reveal the artistry and obsessiveness, esoteric history, and long-whispered-about traditions of a subject shrouded in mystery. In 52 short, compulsively listenable essays, Jay describes how he does it, whether it’s through the making of illusions, the psychology behind them, or the way technology influences the world of magic.
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Joshua Jay Delivers
- By Travis N. on 12-15-21
By: Joshua Jay
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A Question of Power
- Electricity and the Wealth of Nations
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Robert Bryce
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Today, some three billion people live in places where per-capita electricity use is less than what's used by an average American refrigerator. How we close the colossal gap between the electricity rich and the electricity poor will determine our success in addressing issues like women's rights, inequality, and climate change.
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Not the complete story
- By John on 08-11-20
By: Robert Bryce
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Reader, Come Home
- The Reading Brain in a Digital World
- By: Maryanne Wolf
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of Proust and the Squid, a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative epistolary book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies.
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Essential!
- By Millie on 09-13-18
By: Maryanne Wolf
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The Power of Neurodiversity
- Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain
- By: Thomas Armstrong PhD
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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From ADHD and dyslexia to autism, the number of diagnosis categories listed by the American Psychiatric Association has tripled in the last fifty years. With so many affected, it is time to revisit our perceptions of people with disabilities. Psychologist and educator Thomas Armstrong illuminates a new understanding of neuropsychological disorders. He argues that if they are a part of the natural diversity of the human brain, they cannot simply be defined as illnesses. Armstrong explores the evolutionary advantages, special skills, and other positive dimensions of these conditions.
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A Step in the Right Direction
- By Rowan Mendoza on 11-03-21
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The New Climate War
- The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
- By: Michael E. Mann
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.
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A good overview of the status of Climate Politics
- By Kathleen M. Lee on 02-15-21
By: Michael E. Mann
Fascinating history
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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.
More Like Jeopardy Than Charades
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Worth t the time and money.
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Will look for more from this author!
Wonderful!
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Well Written
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Trenchant. Timely. Terrific.
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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.***
More an argument than an explanation.
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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
Good
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Learned a lot about language. Excellent narrator
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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 !!
Language is Mind, Swashbuckling Bards !!
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