The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World (Hardcover)

~ Charles Yang (Author) "Chromosomes. Sex. Grasshoppers. "Pick me up, Mommy..." (more)
Key Phrases: Old English, Middle English, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Children may start to speak at a year, but that's hardly the beginning, as Yale linguist and psychologist Yang shows in this engrossing book. Babies recognize the first elements of language before birth, start to babble at three to four months and can memorize and recognize the sounds of words at six to nine months. Yang uses this fascinating progression to explain one of the core theories of contemporary linguistics: Noam Chomsky's universal grammar, that human understanding of language is in the genes. Yang takes the theory a step further in arguing that the keys to acquiring language are not in the learning, but in unlearning: "Viewed in the Darwinian light, all humanly possible grammars compete to match the language spoken in a child's environment.... This theory of language takes both nature and nurture into account: nature proposes, and nurture disposes." Yang unfolds this complex argument systematically and with appealing animation, using creative examples—his son's first word, neurological experiments, baseball analogies—to keep the narrative moving. For readers who will never venture into the field to study language acquisition, he reveals that some of the most exciting linguistic experiments are happening much closer to home. (June)
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Review

"Charles Yang conducts the reader skillfully on a highly instructive and quite delightful guided tour from the feats of infants that charm every parent and pose extremely difficult scientific problems, through the course of language development and on to the roots of language variation. At every stage, the exposition is based on easy familiarity with the current state of understanding in disciplines ranging from biology to linguistics, and at the same time lucid and engaging. It's an impressive achievement, which should prove most valuable to anyone fascinated by these core elements of human nature and capacities."

-- Noam Chomsky --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743237560
• ISBN-13: 978-0743237567
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #594,460 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How kids learn language--and how Chomsky thinks about it , August 25, 2006

By	Sam Gutmann (Brookline, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the book to read for a clear and deep and ORIGINAL
account of how children "learn" language. It is also by far
the best accessible account to the linguistics of Noam Chomsky,
an intellectual accomplishment that has spread to many other
fields, and whose excitement Yang communicates very well.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overview of current research on language acquisition, April 4, 2007

By	Loves the View "Louise" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

The book interprets the current research on language acquisition for the non-academic. There is a lot of meat here. While it's presented in a very readable way, it is not for the casual reader.

It gave me a better understanding of how grammar as an organizing concept plays out in first language development and once established provides impediments to learning subsequent languages.

For someone interested in languages, there is a lot of food for thought, such as the compounding of words in Eskimo and that the vowel shift that we see in the US is also observable in the speeches of Queen Elizabeth II.

The last chapter on the superiority of the German language lost me. As a non academic, I don't have the tools to refute the thesis. It would seem, though, that even on the hypothetical desert island, to predict the surviving language, more variables than grammar should enter into the equation. English (a grammatical child of German) did survive Latin and French on the Islands of Great Britain. I'd be interested in a discussion of the commonly considered factors (adaptivity, King Alfred, literature, etc) against grammar.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original insights into great human mysteries, November 18, 2006

By	David Evans (Charlottesville, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this wonderfully readable and compelling book, Charles Yang, a noted professor of linguistics now at Penn, uses evidence from children's babbling, biology, neuroscience, and historical literature to provide deep insights into the nature and origin of language and how children accomplish the remarkable feat of learning a language. The book is clearly written and understandable to a broad audience, and poses and answers some of the key questions about understanding what makes humans unique.