A Lifetime of Wondering

The porch on the Acropol Hotel in Morogoro, Tanzania. A friend recently told me I used to pontificate there on the subject of language origins. I remember the pontificiating, but not the topic. (This photo of New Acropol Hotel is courtesy of TripAdvisor )

This Tuesday, the 6^th of September, marks the official publication of the Babel's Dawn book, presenting the story of the 6 million year long process that led to the appearance of true speech. I learned ninety plus percent of the material in the book by working on this blog, but the passion I bring to the issue is very old. More for my own curiosity than anything else, I thought I would celebrate the publication by figuring out the various key moments in my lifelong search.

Age 11: While walking along a street in Paris I realized that language had to have begun at sometime, but, since it couldn't have happened in a meeting wher people worked it out jointly, there was no obvious way for people to start talking to one another. Back in those days paradoxes sometimes terrified me—e.g., what happens when I go to the end of the universe and stick my hand out?—but the language question held my interest without inspiring dread. [This paradox gets a simple solution in Babel's Dawn: before we had locally generated words, we had a long history of biologically produced vocalizations that could turn into words.]

Age 20 During my college days I learned that the academic world took a dim view of my interest in language origins and there was no way to pursue the matter at the university level. The question of origins would be a sideline for me.

Age 24: A friend who was in the Peace Corps with me recently said that he recalls me sitting in Morogoro, Tanzania's Acropol Hotel and discussing language origins with him. I remember the Acropol and those conversations very well, but had completely forgotten discussing the language question. Apparently, despite my discouragement, the origins issue stayed in my mind.[Later, when I returned to the USA, I sold my first article to a newspaper, an essay about Swahili which ran in the Washigton Post.]

Age 25: While still teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer I had a conversation in Swahili that was so different from English—tense unknown to English speakers; single word served as full sentence—that I wondered if reality itself was just an invention that varied from culture to culture. At once, however, I saw that there was something in common--both English and Swahili expressed subject-object relationships. Since that time I have believed language has universals, although I have bounced between thinking them learned or inate.. [A few years later I learned about Chomsky's work, and of course was immediately attracted to its emphasis on universals; however, I never could become a true Chomskyan because I could never take seriously Chomsky's level of abstraction, removing language from all social and worldly context. I would read him thinking, great, great, great and then end up disappointed because the points were not connected to a larger whole.]

Age 28: While falling into bed it occurred to me that I might be wrong about how language is learned. Perhaps, instead of being taught language by their parents, perhaps each generation invents language anew. That led me to thinking about language as an evolutionary product, but it was not an interest in evolution that led me to that thought. Ever since the Peace Corps I have believed in the fundamental creativity of ordinary people. [This bedtime thought was what led me to learn about Chomsky, psycholinguistics, and modern linguistics. It suggested that there might be an answer to where language came from.]

Age 38: Near the end of writing a book about children's language—So Much to Say!—I noticed something peculiar about speech: we say words and then correct them. Computers do not produce output and then issue a correction. I decided that we must have two separate systems for producing language, and I never again took seriously the idea that sentences are the product of a single computation. [Work on further books suggested that those separate systems are two forms of memory—recall and recognition, which produce novel interpretive powers when combined.]

Age 60: As the 50^th anniversary of my original question approached I thought it was about time that I made an effort to see what I could learn about language origins. I read some books and took some notes. Eventually I decided the best way to proceed was with a blog that would let me do research, provide some contacts, and enhance my credentials. Shortly before launching the blog I had one further thought: language depends as much on listening as it does on speaking. The idea prepared me to embrace the speech triangle when I came across it early in my work on the blog.

So there you have a lifetime of milestones working toward today's publication. Of course, the milestones are really just points that stand out in memory. The real story is a lifetime of reading, writing, and wondering about language.

Comments

[Paul Strand]

Thank you, Blair, for hosting what is an enjoyable and stimulating blog. And CONGRATULATIONS on the publication of a book that sounds as though it has been a true labor of love. I look forward to reading it. If it is anything like your earlier accomplishment, Einstein Defiant, it will be one of the best books I have ever read.

[Keith O'Connor]

Interesting blog, and I really njoyed this post. It's funny how it can take a lifetime to put a puzzle together, and with science there is always more to learn (thank goodness). I'm fascinated by many of the same things, and will be back.