The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind

Pinker is pedantic, hypocritical, and passes judgement in ways I wouldn't think someone so well-versed in anthropology and linguistics would. He complains about and belittles the slang talk of teens and “valley girls”, and then at the end of the book goes on to say he is all for slang. Clearly he has a type of slang in mind that he considers valid. He understands that the next generation to use a language shapes it slightly differently than those who came before them, so why is he hating on so many of them? While also saying they're valid? And then again insulting them! Convoluted and confusing.

This book is also very, very dry. He says in 448 pages what he could have said in 200. And I am still not quite sure, after all this, what arguments he is trying to use to say that language is an instinct. I have some guesses, but for claiming to prove that language is an instinct, he does not iterate his points well enough to combat the sea of wordy tangents you have to wade through.

But hey, this guy can diagram a word and a sentence like nobody's business, so I guess I am convinced.

I finally made it through this! I did not always find it easy going, and I know I did not understand everything, while there are other points I might disagree with if I felt more qualified – but overall I learned a lot and I'm glad I did. I was struck especially by the reasoning behind why learning a language is only possible in early childhood (it takes up a lot of energy and since in most of evolution humans only needed to learn one language, it was more evolutionarily favorable to divert those forces once it has been learned); and why our left brain controls the right side of our body (a 180 degree twist of the head at some point in evolution, during the change from crawling creatures whose spine is on the ground and in “front” to walking creatures with the spine in back and soft parts in front.)

I really like how Steven Pinker writes, even if the topic of the book is really technical he knows how to make it easy to understand and keeps you interested because of all the facts he gives.

After reading this book you won't ever think about language in the same way, you'll notice that there is no correct language and it is an ever-evolving living subject, the so called mistakes are sometimes a logically better approach to language and that is why most kids repeat them. This book also gives a clear insight on how the human brain is structured because language is a central part of our everyday lives.

The audiobook version from Brilliance audio is narrated by an automaton, making it almost impossible to enjoy any insights provided by Pinker. I highly recommend avoiding this version at all costs!