GoKawiilNew book argues language arose through group cooperation, not solo invention
Anthropologists Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis trace the long, often taboo history of speculation about how human language began, from Plato to the 1866 Paris Linguistic Society ban on the topic to Noam Chomsky's dismissal of the question. Their new book, The Revolutionary Origins of Language, argues that speech emerged from collective social and cooperative behaviour rather than as an individual cognitive leap, with women's roles featuring prominently in their account.