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How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention by Daniel L. Everett offers a bold, interdisciplinary take on the origin of language. Challenging Noam Chomsky’s influential theory of an innate language instinct, Everett argues that language emerged gradually through cultural and communicative needs. Drawing on decades of fieldwork with the Pirahã people of the Amazon—a hunter-gatherer tribe whose language defies many linguistic universals—Everett presents evidence that language is not a biological given but a cultural tool shaped by social interaction and cognition. The book weaves together insights from archaeology, neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics to explore how our ancestors moved from simple signaling to the complex systems of grammar and symbolism that define modern languages. Everett’s controversial conclusions have sparked debate far beyond academia. This volume offers both a survey of current knowledge and an honest look at the limits of what we can ever know about one of humanity’s most profound inventions.