Why did I love this book?
This book is why I decided to become a professional linguist! Itās a classic: it set the bar high for writing about language in a way thatās scientifically accurate yet gripping.
I was utterly mesmerized by a myriad of things Pinker talks about, like Nicaraguan Sign Language, Brocaās area in the brain, and the workings of words like āriff-raffā and āding-dongā (and why we donāt say āraff-riffā or ādong-dingā). I also love the authorās fascination with, and admiration for, the beauty and complexity of human language and of the human mind.
6 authors picked The Language Instinct as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'Dazzling... Pinker's big idea is that language is an instinct...as innate to us as flying is to geese... Words can hardly do justice to the superlative range and liveliness of Pinker's investigations'
- Independent
'A marvellously readable book... illuminates every facet of human language: its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects' - Nature