The Atoms of Language

Human languages are strikingly different from each other, and also strikingly the same. One of the most indecipherable codes used in World War II was Navajos speaking their native language. Yet the Navajos were able to translate messages to and from English quickly and accurately. This showsthat, for all their differences, languages must have a strong common denominator. Linguistic research is discovering that, in spite of the differences among human languages, the underlying rules that form them are virtually identical. Just as a small number of discrete elements (atoms) combine to form all physical substances, so a small number of discrete factors combine to formlanguages as varied as English, Japanese, Mohawk, and Hixkaryana. All sentences in all languages are built following a common 'recipe', called Universal Grammar. That recipe contains a finite number of choice points, called parameters, which interact with each other in complex ways. As a result, theshapes of phrases and sentences in languages look completely different, even though the underlying rules that form them are almost identical. In this fascinating and illuminating book, Mark C. Baker shows that these parameters can be gathered together systematically into a 'Periodic Table of Languages' that defines the structure of all natural languages. He also discusses some implications of these ideas for our understanding of theorigins of human language and the value of preserving linguistic diversity.