I'm reading Tom Wolfe's The Kingdom of Language now. It had to have been one of his last, if not his very last.
Wolfe built his reputation decades ago as a New Journalism nonfiction writer. Eventually he wanted to expand into novels. The problem with writing fiction while having strongly held political opinions is that you might be tempted to flatten the former in order to better serve the latter. Wolfe wasn't entirely innocent of this.
This book has little if anything to do with all that. It's essentially a look at how language helped make Homo sapiens the dominant species. His portrayal of early evolutionists like Darwin, Wallace, Lyell etc. is quite amusing.
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Having read a couple of his books in those long ago times, I understand how amusing he could be in his character portrayals. I only remember having read three of his books: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and a novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. Of those The Right Stuff was my particular favourite because, rather than getting seriously involved in the technological procedures of the early space program (or wacky acidheads), he focused on the people involved - highly trained test pilots and their families. I don't know if it would be an enjoyable read now but it was quite a revelation back then.
As far as how we learn language is concerned it seemed to me the simplest reason was that we liked to sing. Okay, I agree that's pretty silly, but there may be an element of truth to the idea. Of course many creatures other than humans and great apes have vocal cords, but not all have the rest of the physiology needed. How else animals communicate with one another and what about is beyond anything I know.
That humans have been around for a couple of hundred thousand years is certainly more than long enough a time to go from grunts to 'Look out, it's a cave bear!' and all the way to poetry. Maybe there was some singing done in those long nights around the fires.
Back at the old house there was a copy of a collection of his, Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine. I read that and liked a few of the pieces in it. I read Bonfire of the Vanities as well, which had moments but I'm not sure he was really a novelist. The Right Stuff I probably should read. I'd guess it's much different from the movie. Anyway, this book panned out. There's some great material on Daniel Everett, an anthropologist who challenged Noam Chomsky's theories on language.
That's an interesting idea that we learned language because we like to sing. It's always seemed to me that the difference between human singing and, say, birds singing is that we have speech to contrast it with. That plus our greater self-consciousness. But stranger things have happened.
The first person to try speaking in full sentences must have gotten quite a reaction. "Oh God, this guy was just making monosyllabic grunts last week and now he's going on and on. Wait a minute! So is the inside of my head!"
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