The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue

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Wiley, May 6, 1994 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 239 pages
"Ruhlen is a leader in the new attempt to unify the theory of language development and diffusion."––Library Journal

"A powerful statement...also a wonderfully clear exposition of linguistic thinking about prehistory."––Anthropological Science

One of the world's foremost language researchers takes readers step-by-step through the hotly contested evidence that all modern languages derive from one "mother tongue" once spoken by primitive humans in Africa. With The Origin of Language, Merritt Ruhlen makes this fascinating science accessible to readers with no linguistic background.

MERRITT RUHLEN, PhD (Palo Alto, California) is the author of A Guide to the World's Languages

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Contents

What Do We Mean by The Origin
1
Language in the New World
4
Why Classification Succeeds
11
Copyright

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