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

by Charles Yang

Book Overview

A child's very first word is a miraculous sound, the opening note in a lifelong symphony. Most parents never forget the moment. But that first word is soon followed by a second and a third, and by the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743237560
• ISBN13: 9780743237567
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A captivating read.

Despite my own lack of linguistic training I did not find this dry. The writer has an engaging, conversational style, and makes the technical aspects accessible to all. (If you can make tree-diagrams seem compelling, you have achieved something special.) A good book for parents curious about language development, and amateur-linguists alike.

Overview of current research on language acquisition

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.

Great book about language acquisition

This is a great book if you want to have an informed view while you watch your (grand)children learn their native language. It is fascinating to watch children do just what current theory says they will do! This book is mainly for people who are used to thinking about technical and abstract stuff. I already knew a little about the subject and found the book at just the right level -- the author communicates the basic ideas but does not get bogged down in excessive detail.

Original insights into great human mysteries

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.

How kids learn language--and how Chomsky thinks about it

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.