Re: Conlang book report: The Unfolding of Language

So, as I understand, your major misgiving about the
book's "Me, Tarzan" phase is the fact that he uses the
mammoth story and not a more politically correct
narrative? Would it have been more palatable with
something like: girl pick fruit  give boy  boy girl
eat  etc.  You seem to have positive comments to make
about his actual assertions.
IMHO, I think Deutscher does an excellent job in
laying out some basic premises of historical
linguistics, and, hopefully, encourages people to
search out more complex and challenging texts. And for
those who don't, his book gives them a (very) basic
understanding of how language might have evolved. The
Unfolding of Language is (currently) one of my
favorite books both on language in general and for
conlanging specifically. I am hoping to try out the
"Me, Tarzan" procedures in constructing a conlang from
scratch someday. I agree that the "Me, Tarzan"
terminology is "too cute," but it should be remembered
that the author is targetting a general audience and
most people think of "Me, Tarzan" as a primitive form
of language.

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