One of the things that struck me when reading this book was how into nitpicky details Pinker sometimes went and how that made the reading very slow, although enjoyable. Even if it was enjoyable, I wish the pace was a bit faster. I was happy that my 2015 edition of the book had an afterword that explained where the research for each chapter was today, because the field has grown in 21 years for sure - even so, the book itself did not feel outdated. Since I've only read Pinker's newer stuff I was surprised that he had written a book like this, and did not expect it to be this good.

Pinker goes into detail about everything concerning language, how it has evolved, created, if we have an instinct for it, where in the brain it functions, complex grammar structures, etc. I was amazed that I could follow even if English is my third language. Like with any book of this length there are long passages that feel like a desert, until you arrive at the oasis. Some parts of the book, for instance, how language develops in a child, are really great reading for me because this is something I'm interested in in regards to epistemology. Books like this give you a foundation to take into fields like philosophy, and If I need a second look I know where to find the information for my support while the information itself is living in the ideas formed or confirmed when reading through.

I feel, in the end, that I'm happy that a book like this was written as it adds something important into written form to the general audience that was lacking before.

Interesting for its discussion of language and language acquisition. But: too many people take Pinker's word as gospel, when in fact his theories are quite controversial. This book also bears a lot of responsibility for the rise of pop EvPsych. Evolutionary psychology is a field that has a few worthwhile observations mixed with an awful lot of BS used to justify all sorts of learned behavior. So, read this book with a very large grain of salt.

There's a joke in this book that linguists really like. An English woman has just got off the plane at Boston's Logan airport. She takes a cab, and starts questioning the driver about where to obtain various local delicacies.

"Oh yes," she says in her posh English accent. "Could you tell me where you can get scrod here?"

And the driver replies, "You know, you don't often hear that in the pluperfect subjunctive!"

__________________________________________

Another linguist joke, for people who haven't already heard it. The guy is visiting the university, and managed to get himself thoroughly lost. He goes up to an academic-looking type and asks politely,

"Excuse me, do you know which building the linguistics department is in?"

"It's generally considered incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition" replies the academic.

"I'm sorry!" says the visitor. "I mean, do you know which building the linguistics department is in, asshole?"

__________________________________________

An American grad student and a German grad student are talking about their dissertations.

"I've nearly finished mine," boasts the German. "It's in four volumes!"

"Wow!" says the American, impressed. "What are they?"

"Well," says the German. "The first one is the background, the second is the experiments, and the third is the analysis."

"What about the fourth?" asks the American.

"Oh! That's just the verbs."

[You may need to know something about German word-order to find this amusing.:]

__________________________________________

It's the day after the Great Vowel Shift, and this guy goes into a bar.

"Can I have an ale?" he asks.

And the barman replies,

"I'm sorry sir, the fishmonger is next door."

__________________________________________

I wondered where the Great Vowel Shift Joke came from, and - how could I not have guessed? - it turns out to be the work of the late, much-lamented James D. McCawley. Specifically, it comes from his piece "Linguistically Noteworthy Dates in May", which I reproduce here for your delectation:

May 2, 1919. Baudouin de Courtenay concedes defeat in his bid for the presidency of Poland.
May 3, 1955. Mouton & Co. discover how American libraries order books and scheme to cash in by starting several series of books on limericks. The person given charge of this project mishears and starts several series of books on linguistics. No one ever notices the mistake.
May 5, 1403. The Great English Vowel Shift begins. Giles of Tottenham calls for ale at his favorite pub and is perplexed when the barmaid tells him that the fishmonger is next door.
May 6, 1939. The University of Chicago trades Leonard Bloomfield to Yale University for two janitors and an undisclosed number of concrete gargoyles.
May 7, 1966. r-less pronunciation is observed in eight kindergarten pupils in Secaucus, N.J. The governor of New Jersey stations national guardsmen along the banks of the Hudson.
May 9, 1917. N. Ja. Marr discovers ROSH, the missing link for Japhetic unity.
May 11, 1032. Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II orders isoglosses erected across northern Germany as defense against Viking intruders.
May 12, 1965. Sydney Lamb announces discovery of the hypersememic stratum, setting off a wave of selling on the NYSE.
May 13. Vowel Day. (Public holiday in Kabardian Autonomous Region). The ceremonial vowel is pronounced by all Kabardians as a symbol of brotherhood with all speakers of human languages.
May 14, 519 B.C. Birth of Panini.
May 15, 1964. J. Katz and J. Fodor are separated in 5-hour surgery from which neither recovers.
May 17, 1966. J. R. Ross tells a clean joke.
May 18, 1941. Quang Phuc Dong is captured by the Japanese and interned for the duration of hostilities.
May 19. Diphthong Day. (Public holiday in Australia)
May 20, 473 B.C. Publisher returns to Panini a manuscript entitled Saptadhyayi with a note requesting the addition of a chapter on phonology. Panini begins struggling to meet the publisher's deadline.
May 21, 1962. First mention of The Sound Pattern of English as ‘in press’.
May 23, 38,471 B.C. God creates language.
May 26, 1945. Zellig Harris applies his newly formulated discovery procedures and discovers [t].
May 27, 1969. George Lakoff discovers the global rule. Supermarkets in Cambridge, Mass. are struck by frenzied buying of canned goods.
May 29, 1962. Angular brackets are discovered. Classes at M.I.T. are dismissed and much Latvian plum brandy is consumed.
May 30, 1939. Charles F. Hockett finishes composing the music for the Linguistic Society of America's anthem, ‘Can You Hear the Difference?’
May 31, 1951. Chomsky discovers Affix-hopping and is reprimanded by his father for discovering rules on shabas.

Steven Pinker and I should be natural enemies. He's a representative of what I consider to be the smarmy, science-precludes-all-else school of hung-up modernist reductionists, while I fly the flag of what he considers to be the wishy-washy, Nietzsche-damaged academic Left. And yet it's difficult for me not to have some respect for his project.

When he's not making potshots at relativism(s), he is generally quite lucid and charming, and throughout writes with a clear, approachable logic. By cogitating on the structure of Creole languages and the speech patterns of aphasics, he makes a very, very strong case for a universal grammar. While there are suggestions that certain features of universal aren't present in some languages, it seems to be a reasonable hypothesis. I will say, as an arch-empiricist and an arch-skeptic, that there's a very strong chance that grammatical structures quite likely have a social rather than a strictly evolutionary basis, but the idea is certainly thought-provoking. And, importantly for us moody relativists, he has convinced me (in a way that Peter Singer totally didn't) of the democratic potential of the notion of innate human nature.

I do feel that he utilizes a certain circular logic. In Pinker's view, morphemes fit into the framework of syntax, and therefore language is innate. What is a morpheme? Something that fits into the framework of syntax. Also, he largely relies on generalizations rather than universals.

Oh, and he claims signifiers are arbitrary, even in the case of onomatopoeia. And yet he tries to claim that certain signifiers are non-arbitrary because we evolved in certain ways. This is just a glaring example that implies, to me, that Pinker used his data to fit his conclusion. Bad science booohissss.

But while these problems call into question his work and method, it's still a work I have the utmost respect for, and that everyone interested in language, whether liquored-up French deconstructionist or icy positivist, needs to read.

Pinker is good at making specialized knowledge sound interesting. His writing style is lively and sharp, he makes a few good quips, his stories are fun. The book is long, but didn't feel time-consuming.

Despite all this, the most common thing I felt while reading it was annoyance. There must be a lot more to the many theories that Pinker briefly describes and then triumphantly discards as "Wrong!" I get that some nuance must be subtracted when technical information is summarized so that outsiders can understand it. But he so frequently speaks in black-and-white terms that I find it difficult to trust his analyses. Sometimes he almost sounds like he's giving a pitch, like he's trying to sell science because he's worried it will disappear otherwise.

The book certainly has panache, but in the end I think it would have been more convincing if Pinker were not so allergic to words like "perhaps," "almost," "sometimes," and "on the other hand."

There were some parts of this that were interesting and worth reading for, but overall it was a waffly and long winded book that I struggled to get through at some boring points.

*Read for school*

2.5/3 stars

This was an okay read - very technical at some points, so those parts nearly lulled me to sleep. Honestly, I wouldn't have picked it up had it not been for my linguistics class - but i did learn about how languages formed, so in a way, it was pretty interesting.

Nothing remarkable, though.

This review is edition-specific. Excellent, if highly abridged, reading of the famous popularization of linguistic nativism. Lalla Ward, Richard Dawkins's wife and once an actress on Doctor Who, is well known among those who like science audiobooks for her contributions to the audio versions of her husband's n  The God Delusionn and n  The Ancestor's Talen. Her reading here is characteristically lively, and of course, the material leaves nothing to be desired. Especially good was that one interview with a subject intended to illustrate what Black English Vernacular (BEV) sounds like was an actual recording. I dock a star from the review only because more than half of the printed book was not present in this audio edition.

If you've done Computer Science course including "The Dragon Book", you'll find most of Pinker's technical content familiar (but boringly told). If you didn't, surely you'd find it incomprehensible (and boringly told)?

I think this is the best review
By pinker himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_O...

نسخة مترجمة من محاضرة بينكر، وهي بشكل كبير مراجعة لكتابه
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0gVL...

الترجمة العربية سيئة جدًا، تغني عنها المحاضرة لمن يريد الاطلاع فقط

I have great respect for Noam Chomsky's Theory of Universal Grammar, to the popularization of which Steven Pinker dedicates this work. The idea of a built-in mechanism of instinctive comprehension of language at the genetic level is a powerful incentive for those who want to study.

It is sad that the time for activation is given only up to twelve years, but maybe it is somehow possible to activate after this period? Many literary translators, I know, came to serious studies at a much more mature age. And this means that we should not throw off the ship of modernity a functional and cognitive approach to linguistics, old-school and not as bright as Chomsky's generative linguistics, but explaining a lot in the mechanisms of conscious language acquisition.

Moreover, to achieve a level of persuasiveness, as it was with "the best in us. Why there was less violence" this time Pinker failed. The book is extremely uneven in terms of style. All the time there was a feeling that he was spreading his thoughts along the tree, rushing in all directions, simultaneously arguing with opponents, sitting down to chat over a cup of tea with like-minded people (speaking the same language with him), continuing to explain what students did not fully understand during the special course, and only last of all remembers the reader himself.

Ваш великий и могучий Структуральнейший лингвист
Во все времена во всех человеческих сообществах язык изменялся, хотя разные части языка изменялись в разных человеческих сообществах по-разному.
Есть у вас мечта нематериального свойства? В смысле, не яхта, Ferrari, отель в Дубае в собственность - не то, для чего нужны, главным образом, деньги. Я мечтала понимать сказанное-написанное на чужих языках и всегда думала, что это нереально, нужно с детства воспитываться в двуязычии и/или окончить языковую спецшколу, и/или долго жить в чужой стране с возможностью глубокого погружения. А без того, оставь надежду, всяк...

Пока однажды не взяла себя в руки, хорошенько пнув собственную лень и неуверенность, и занялась, наконец, языками. Многими, за тот период прошла в общей сложности четырнадцать языковых курсов, в том числе такие не самые популярные, как португальский, датский, венгерский. На каждом стараясь прочитывать хотя бы небольшую книжку. Эксперимент длился три года с небольшим, оказался насыщенным, хотя непростым периодом личной истории. На испанском и английском я теперь читаю, польский понимаю с голоса, при необходимости пойму написанное на любом индоевропейском. Неожиданным побочным результатом стало быстрое чтение на русском.

Это вступление было к тому, что , случись "Язык как инстинкт" со мной в тот период, книга наверняка произвела бы большее впечатление и послужила источником немалых читательских радостей. Подумать только, тебе авторитетно, на шести сотнях страниц объясняют, что язык встроен в человека врожденной функцией, как плетение паутины в паука и умение строить плотины в бобра. Как минимум, вдохновляющее чтение.

Сегодня, когда роман с лингвистикой отошел в область нежных воспоминаний, я воспринимаю такого рода книги как занятный нон-фикшн, но с изрядной долей критичности. То есть, к Теории универсальной грамматики Ноама Хомского, популяризации которой Стивен Пинкер посвящает этот труд, я с большим уважением. Идея встроенного на генетическом уровне механизма инстинктивного постижения языка мощнейший стимул для желающих изучать.

Печально, что времени на активацию отводится всего-то до двенадцати лет, но может быть как-то можно активировать и по истечении этого срока? Многие литературные переводчики, я знаю, приходили к серьезным занятиям в куда более зрелом возрасте. И значит, не стоит сбрасывать с корабля современности функциональный и когнитивный подход к лингвистике, олдскульные и не столь яркие, как порождающая лингвистика Хомского, но многое объясняющие в механизмах осознанного овладения языками.

Тем более, что достичь уровня убедительности, как это было с "Лучшим в нас. Почему насилия стало меньше" на сей раз Пинкеру не удалось. Книга чрезвычайно неровная с точки зрения стиля. Все время не покидало чувство, что он растекается мыслию по древу, мечется во все стороны, одновременно полемизируя с оппонентами, присаживаясь поболтать за чашкой чая с единомышленниками (говорящими с ним на одном языке), продолжает объяснять не до конца понятое студентами в ходе спецкурса, и лишь в последнюю очередь вспоминает собственно о читателе.

Еще один нюанс, исходя из которого я не рекомендовала бы этот томик русскому читателю, в то время, как англоязычному эта особенность подарит много радости. Книга выражено англизированная. Для иллюстрации своих идей автор приводит массу замечательно интересных примеров историко-географических, социально-обусловленных, стилистических трансформаций английского языка.

Немало страниц посвящены восхитительным игрищам с идиомами, когда, буквализацией значения расхожие выражения доводятся до абсурда. Кроме того, "Язык как инстинкт" это еще и разговор о литературном стиле. Где наряду с универсальными советами о том, как следует работать с текстом, сколько раз вычитывать и редактировать его, немалую роль играют и такие специфически английские темы, как насколько приемлемо использование тех или иных слов и выражений. Вы найдете их полезными, если собираетесь писать книги на английском, в остальных случаях вряд ли.

Резюмируя: книга представляет интерес для очень ограниченной и специфичной читательской аудитории, и практически невозможна для адаптации к руксскоязычным реалиям.

This book is an excellent introduction into linguistics and language-related scientific fields (such as psycholinguistics, evolutionary linguistics, learning theory, etc), for someone like me who has been fascinated by the subject for a long time, but only had the chance to dabble a toe or two into one sub-area or another.
It corrects many popular misconceptions about language and language learning, from the point of view of the author, based on the latest scientific concensus (at the time the book was written in 1994, though there's a section at the end of the 2007 edition with additions and corrections), such as the strong Whorf-Sapir hypothesis (which states that language determines thoughts) which discredits the possibility of the 1984 dystopian scenario with Newspeak (*sigh of relief*), the idea that some non-human members of the great apes could use "language" even remotely close in complexity to human language as claims have continuously been made over the years, or that parents speaking to their young children is essential for the later's ability to acquire language.
It also presents Chomsky's hypothesis of Universal Grammar, which is a set of rules thought to be the backbone of all human languages, regardless of their apparent phonetics, vocabulary or grammatical rules, and a mirror image of the brain structures that might have evolved to allow complex language parsing and construction, as well as acquiring the native language during childhood.
Considering Steven Pinker's simple and beautiful style, as well as clear and direct explanations (for the most part), I am certainly looking forward to reading the rest of his books.