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SPEECH! How Language Made Us Human

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SPEECH! How Language Made Us Human

By: Simon Prentis
Narrated by: Mike Fraser
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About this listen

What makes us human? Why are we the only animals who wear clothes, drive cars, trawl the internet, and fly helicopters on Mars? It’s all because we’ve learnt to talk, yet remarkably, we still don’t know how we did it.

Speech! suggests an answer that’s been hiding in plain sight - the simple yet radical shift that turned our analog grunts and shrieks into words. But, its consequences are far from simple: being able to share ideas through language was an evolutionary tipping point - it allowed us to link up our minds. Speech! traces our roller-coaster ride with language from hunter-gatherer to urban hipster: the epic tale of the struggle for knowledge against the false gods of culture, religion, and identity - as we teeter toward a destination we may still resist, but ultimately cannot escape...

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Simon Prentis (P)2022 Simon Prentis Biological Sciences Evolution Evolution & Genetics Linguistics Science Social Sciences Human Language

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Simon Prentis has thought long and hard about how spoken language and it’s offshoots, writing, printing and finally the Internet have shaped and defined the human experience and our consciousness. While I am not fully convinced by all his conclusions, he has made a hugely important contribution to the debate, but much more crucially he has delivered a challenge both to the international community and to each member of our species. We must evolve or die out. In the end, all we have is a small planet and each other, two resources we are on the brink of wasting.
He is an optimist however, and seems to refuse to believe it’s not over. The answer lies, no great surprise by this time, in .... speech, in our use of language.
Mike Fraser has delivered a good reading of an erudite and salient book. His voice sounds older, however, than I know Simon Prentis sounds himself, and it is occasionally odd to hear him speak the words ‘Soft Machine’ ‘William Burroughs’ and ‘Frank Zappa’ but that's my problem rather than his I guess. Overall he had done a good job however, and manages not to sound pretentious or portentous, two things I know Mr Prentis is not.
I had to re listen to a few chapters to make sure I was following the trail adequately, but overall it was an entertaining and intriguing ride.

An impressively well researched and persuasive work.

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fantastic, well laid out and narrated book.
contemporary and factual.
well deserved a read, even more then once.

fascinating

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This is a wittily written fascinating book about speech - and how it shapes us and we shape it. It answers so very many questions about humankind - well researched and easy to follow - never too ‘academic’ and often very amusing. I loved it!

Should be on every school syllabus!

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A fascinating book which encompasses so much more than speech, which in itself is a far wider and more interesting subject than I had realised. As I listen, I am not only learning about language and the way it has developed but also about human communication, different cultures, geography, history and even food. This book is beautifully read by a narrator with a great speaking voice which is perfect for this thought provoking topic.

Fascinating book

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