The co-evolution of language and the human brain Book review by Anthony Campbell. After all, some of them show good evidence of intelligence in other respects, yet language eludes them. So the book sets out to examine what it is about the human brain that makes it capable of speech.
Deacon approaches the subject from three angles.
As my summary indicates, this is an ambitious book but Deacon is well qualified to write it. He does research in developmental and comparative neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and Boston University, and is also Associate Professor of Biological Anthropology at Boston University. Moreover, he is an excellent writer. In order to shift to a higher level in the hierarchy you have to unlearn the associations you made at the lower level. Deacon uses this idea to explain the astonishing ease with which small children acquire language and also relates it to attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, especially a young bonobo called Kanzi.