In this book, Steven Pinker discusses lot of questions that I have never seen anyone answering earlier. Of course most of the basic unanswered questions have a reason to still remain largely unanswered.

They question some of the things we take for granted or have a very simple naive explanation for. For instance, questions of how a baby learns to communicate and what part does genetics have to do with ability to pick up language.

There is a long list of interesting connections made in this cover-to-cover journey spanning linguistics, sociopolitical commentaries, genetics, neuroscience, philosophy, biology, psychology and literature, and even some history.

This is a definite reread material and one helluva stepping stone into a whole new world of understanding the language system of Homo sapiens and hence also the species and the individuals contained within.

I am currently reading Pinker's "The blank Slate" and now I remember having read "The Language Instinct" around the time it first came out. I remember enjoying it a lot and finding the material utterly fascinating. When I was in college I wrote a major paper for a graduate seminar that was a review of the research into communication and language development in primates up to that time. When I read this book I truly enjoyed catching up with 20-some years of research and thinking on the topic of language acquisition.

The last 3 chapters don't add much to the book that is grammar and language-learning oriented, which is expected and highly informative, and veer towards pure biology, with some comments about anthropology and pitfalls of higher learning when it comes to commonalities among people. But I enjoyed the tone of the book, the methodical way the author explained his ideas, supporting them with examples and citations. He's also made Chomsky far more palatable than when we learned about his theory in class.

"Parti müdavimleri bilirler ki Chomsky'nin entelektüel hayata en büyük katkısı derin yapıdır." Bu üslubu sevmemek mümkün mü? Orjinal dilinde okumadım ama çevirinin ne kadar iyi olduğu sanırım tartışılacaktır. Yazar İngilizce dil bilgisinin derinlerine girdiği için çevirmeni zorlamış olmalı. Bunun yanında Pinker'ın bahsetmeyi sevdiği genel konular. Pinker okumaya bu kitaptan başlamamak daha iyi olur diye düşünüyorum. Yine de örnekler ve benzetmeler her zamanki gibi çok iyi.

Some parts were really good. Some parts dragged.

A lot of the book just seemed like common sense. For example, "Why doesn't a baby know how to talk when it is born?" Ummmmmmm......okay. Although like I said, the parts that were really good were quite interesting. Although for the life of me, I can't remember what they were now. Maybe that Eskimos don't really have 1,000 words for snow? (Not something that I ever actually believed.)

Oh, and Mr. Pinker---the name of the drink in Japan is "Pocari Sweat," not "Sweat". Put that in your revised edition and you can attribute it to me. :-)

Es BUENÍSIMO este libro

I thought I had an interest in Linguistics; it turns out that I don’t.

Overall I think this was a good book. It was a bit dated in places, but I think all that really suffered was the pop culture references and examples. The theory and research examples held up.

I enjoyed how the author gave examples and explained theories that were broader than language to put his language thesis in context. I did not particularly enjoy how the author gave 15 examples for each type of phrasing he was referencing. I get it after one or two. I was listening to an audiobook version, so instead of skimming the text after he started in on the repetitions, I listened, feeling silly when my family walked in to a recording of a guy just saying random sentences.

Though the book was first published in ~94, the version I listened to had an update that acknowledged the passage of time and updated affected chapters.

it took me a while to read it cause it got too scientific at times, but Pinker has tried to explain this as simple as he can and his humor makes it a good read. i recommend this to language lovers.

I came for the science, but stayed for the linguistics jokes.

In this book Steven Pinker challenged two related assumptions that I’d previously made about language: firstly, that the mechanics of one’s particular language must have a significant effect on their perception and understanding of the world around them (after all, we think and perceive largely in the context of our language, right?), and secondly, that without exposure to language we would “think” and “perceive” in some way that is quite different than what we could now imagine. Building on the work of Chomsky, Pinker argues against these notions, attempting to demonstrate that the languages we speak are more similar to each other, and innately reflective of our inner mental workings, than we might have realized. In other words, our brains determine our language (and not the other way around) because we are wired to develop in our thought and communication patterns in a certain way.

Pinker explores the overlap shared by fields fascinating on their own (linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, human development), at times supporting his points with a microscope (down to the interactions between synapses) and at times using broad observations about the history of language’s usefulness for us as a species. A charming and informative book for anyone who does not find it a bore to think about thinking, read about reading, or talk about talking.

I had always supposed that linguists could not write clearly. Rather like psychiatrists who were mad, sociologists who couldn’t get on with people, and social anthropologists who were permanent outsiders, linguists, I supposed, devoted their adulthood overcoming their childhood difficulties with language. Here, however, I discover my prejudices overturned. Considering the inherent complexity of his topic, Steven Pinker’s book on language is witty, lucid and intelligible.

Pinker’s theme is that people are born with an inherent capacity – an instinct – that enables them to construct language. In much the same way as they are programmed to learn, at appropriate ages, to walk, to tell jokes and to have sex, so people have an innate ability to learn to speak correctly. Around this central idea – derived from Chomsky’s studies of syntax – Pinker hangs a summary of some of the most important recent ideas in linguistics.

The book therefore doubles as a textbook for a first year linguistics student and a good general introduction for a mildly interested beginner (for somebody like me). It is also a polemical book, for Pinker is not afraid to ride hobby horses and proclaim his own vision of the one true linguistics. He delves into the mysteries of Chomskyan deep structure, explaining that the grammar of particular languages are constructed from the inbuilt language-structure that is common to every person and every language. He defies the linguistic relativism associated with the names of Sapir and Whorf. He explains how people and animals think without having a language. He tells the story of deaf children in Nicaragua who were thrown together with older children who knew bits and pieces of sign language from a variety of sources, but who, from these bits and pieces, were able to construct a sign language as coherent as any other. He casts doubt on the supposed ability of monkeys and whales to speak human languages. He explores the biology that explains – or might explain – the instinct for speaking. He opposes those who fight endless wars against the split infinitive, the greengrocer's apostrophe and the final participle, claiming that their own version of English is the only correct one. And he does much more.

The book is, in short, informative and intelligent. It is also a lot of fun. I see that a more recent book by Pinker has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Having just read this one, I am not at all surprised.

This book offers great theory of how language works. Steven Pinker also makes a great case why grammar is important, and not the prescriptive kind like "don't split infinitives", but rather the kind of universal grammar that every human child seems to be capable of learning.

As a next step, I'd recommend to every reader Pinker's 2007 book The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, this one might be more up the standards of us empirically minded people.